short film review

THE HORROR OF IT ALL

2008-02-25T10:42:00.006-05:00

OH, THE HORROR OF IT ALL!

The Nevermore Horror film festival in Durham, NC, has always presented excellent programs of horror themed short films, but the 2008 crop of entries surpassed even those of previous years.

Horror and science fiction short films are probably the single most viable of the short film genres following comedy shorts, which of course have been part of filmmaking from the start. All films were short films back in the beginning, and filmmakers can still learn plenty from silent short films about telling a complete genre story in short form.

Comedy horror, particularly Zombie comedy, is a subgenre of this short film subgenre that's increasingly notable at film festivals in both the short film and feature length entries. Short films, though, lend themselves particularly to comedy treatments.

"Prombies," a black and white homage to many other horror films as well as an accurate satirical take on what boys really want on prom night, as our reviewer, Nicole Black noted, is one of the cleverest takes on the whole zombie idea we've seen so far. Zombies, it turns out, provide a rotting canvas for metaphors of all types. George Romero's latest feature length "Diary of A Zombie," has been criticized for pounding home its idea that media has become our reality, and he pioneered the use of zombies to satirize modern life, such as consumer society ("Dawn of the Dead," the original version).

"Prombies" achieves this quite effectively, managing to throw in filmic homages to producer Val Lewton's shadow haunted B films of the 1940s ("Cat People,"), other zombie films, and the whole slasher genre. The jokes work extremely well. A line such as "He's eating her alive!" takes on double meaning in a laugh provoking context, for instance. The empty high school halls, shadowed and echoing, are a suitable horror setting. Fans of old 1950s TV shows such as Superman and B movies will recognize the much over-used stock suspense music, but it is quite appropriate here, its familiar rise and fall evoking the same sort of feel as the moody black and white images.

Still, "Prombies," manages about all the screen time it could sustain at this short length (briefest of the films discussed here).

"Gay Zombie," and the multiple-award-winning "Zombie Love," a musical with send-ups of Hollywood and Bollywood musical conventions, all work as short films, but lack enough substance to sustain feature length. They could actually benefit from judicious cutting even at their current lengths.

But I'm guessing that of all the short film genres, again, save comedy short films, the horror and comedy horror shorts will find real markets earliest. Today, the chance to see them, especially collected in group programs, remains one of the best reasons for attending film festivals internationally.--Allan Maurer

Comedy Horror Shorts at Nevermore

2008-02-25T09:32:00.010-05:00

Nicole Black reviews the “They're Coming to Get You, Barbra!” program at 2008 Nevermore Horror Film Fest in Durham, NC:

The Nevermore Film Festival at the Carolina Theatre showed four comedy-horro-shorts. Included were: French film maker Guillaume Tunzini's Fathers-in-Law, Florida State University Film School and Frederick Snyder's Prombies!, Michael Simon's Gay Zombie and Yfke van Berckelaer's Zombie Love.

In the eight minutes it takes to completely view Fathers-in-Law, you'll find yourself both laughing at the stupidity of the scene and cringing at the absurd explosion of blood that follows. It does manage to surprise.

The zombie action begins with the seven-minute showing of Prombies!, a clever take on what high school boys really want on prom night. While the the acting and music may appear overdramatic in the beginning, they are a part of the film's charm, and the witty dialogue makes up for it. The idea that sex turns teenaged boys into one-track minded zombies is a hilarious concept on its own.

Gay Zombie can be hard to watch if your vision is not up to par. The lack of lighting in the film causes scenes to be murky, dark and blurry. Digital projection and digital filmmaking both leave something to be desired compared to 35mm at times. But if you can stick it out, the 20 minute short has an inventive twist on zombie existence. Viewers will follow the sexually confused and undead protagonist on his journey to fit in. The movie does have parts that reek of a dumb high school flick with the typical girlie makeover and clothes modeling scenes. Overall, the film is fun.

The 37-minute Zombie Love short takes the audience through a zombie and human's quirky quest for love. From the time Claudia finds the finger of the zombie-poet, Dante, who saved her in the graveyard, she is obsessed with meeting him again. Dante tries to become more human to win her affection, not realizing its the zombie in him that she loves. The musical's whacky lyrics and dialogue will make you laugh the way only something so nonsensical can. References to the films of Bollywood will have the audience in an uproar of laughter. The film is fantastically original and the most entertaining of the four.

Written by Nicole Black

Oscar nominated shorts show "astonishing creative revolution."

2008-02-15T07:58:00.004-05:00

The venerable New York Times, reviewing this year's Oscar nominees for short films, notes that the genre is no longer restricted to the amusements that used to precede feature films.

Now, the times points out, they run up to 40 minutes and include sophisticated and technologically advanced work that has "sparked an astonishing creative revolution."

The Times' piece also notes that of the films nominated this year, none were made in the United States, let alone Hollywood.

Shorts reviewed include: “Madame Tutli-Putli” (from Canada); Aleksandr Petrov’s “My Love,”; Hugh Welchman’s version of “Peter and the Wolf,” which uses the Prokofiev score sans narration or dialogue; “Even Pigeons Go to Heaven” from France, "in which a greedy priest tries to sell an old man a machine that will take him to heaven," and “I Met the Walrus,” a Canadian film that animates a short interview with John Lennon in 1969..

Among live action shorts,the Times' Steven Holden sees Christian E. Christiansen and Louise Vesth’s life-and-death drama “At Night” (from Denmark) as the most compelling.

He says, "Daniel Barber and Matthew Brown’s western “The Tonto Woman” from Britain is the visually austere but pretentiously executed story of an itinerant cattle rustler who befriends the socially outcast wife of a rancher."

“The Mozart of Pickpockets” from France, which Holden says is "the too-cute story of a deaf-mute child who attaches himself to professional thieves."

Finally, he mentions Andrea Jublin’s “Il Supplente” (“The Substitute”), from Italy.

Here's a link to the review (registration may be required)

http://movies.nytimes.com/2008/02/15/movies/15shor.html?8dpc

Journal of Short Film Releases Vol. 8

2007-08-12T19:58:00.000-04:00

The Journal of Short Film releases Volume 8 (Summer 2007)
in July. The JSF is a quarterly DVD featuring exceptional,
peer-reviewed short films. To date, the JSF has published over 80
filmmakers from 10 countries. Volume 8 includes the Journal’s first
films from Romania and Iran.

Volume 8 covers more ground than most previous volumes, walking through
fields in Romania, crossing the Brooklyn Bridge in 1899, busing the
streets of San Francisco, and touring a prehistoric site in Mexico.
But before a theme can take hold, the collection of 11 films continues
the Journal’s policy of diversity. Other settings range from urban
Iran to a sheep farm to a morgue to a birthing room full of surprises.

The Journal was pleased to host Chicago-based filmmaker Deborah
Stratman as a guest editor for Volume 8. She is known for her work
through her production company Pythagoras. She was highly praised for
her short work In Order Not To Be Here, and she recently completed
Kings of the Sky, a feature documentary about Muslim Uyghur tightrope
walkers in western China.

The Journal continues to have a free and open submissions process.
Submissions should be sent to The JSF, PO Box 8217, Columbus, OH
43201, USA. The Journal also remains ad-free, committed to independent
and underrepresented work, and insistent that art and entertainment are
not mutually exclusive.

Following is a list of the films in Volume 8:

1. LAMPA CU CACIULA (THE TUBE WITH A HAT) – Radu Jude [Romania] (2006,
23:00) A father and son carry their TV set to the city to have it fixed
before the afternoon movie.

2. THE BOY IN THE AIR – Lyn Elliot (2005,
2:00) An enigmatic advertisement inspires a letter. The corporation
writes back.

3. MANUELLE LABOR – Marie Losier (2007, 10:00) A
collaboration with Guy Maddin leads to a birthing scene unlike any
other.

4. ART/WORK – Avram Dodson (2006, 5:00) A realistic look at
the relationship between the artist and the day job.

5. FLIP-FILM –
Ellen Ugelstad and Alfonso Alvarez (1999, 1:05) A staccato peek at San
Francisco from the inside of a bus. Made in the tradition of Biograph’s
1890 Mutoscope.

6. MARDHA HAMDIGAR RA BEHTAR MIFAHMAND (MEN
UNDERSTAND EACH OTHER) – Marjan Alizadeh [Iran] (2007, 8:00) Two men
and a woman: it seems men understand each other better.

7. UNIFIED
FIELDS – Brandon Walley (2006, 9:00) During a hot summer weekend in the
country with my family, I tried to capture an odd sense of
interconnectedness yet isolation.

8. OUTERBOROUGH – Bill Morrison
(2005, 8:30) A split-screen extrapolation of a film taken while
crossing the Brooklyn Bridge in 1899.

9. NOTHINGNESS – Arzu Ozkal
Telhan (2005, 2:55) Nothingness is about resignation; an unwilling
state of existence under the weight of insatiable humanity. 10.
MARTIN – Bill Basquin (2004, 5:00) Martin is a poetic portrait of a
sheep shearer and his philosophical musings on rural life. 11. TO THE
SOUTH WAS 72 – Sabine Gruffat (2005, 11:00) “A personal guided tour of
the largest prehistoric city north of Mexico.” -Anonymous
For more information:

contact@theJSF.org

UK short Free Speech intrigues at Atomfilms

2007-08-12T19:33:00.000-04:00

There's such a wooly wide world of really fine short films available on the Internet, through film festivals, dvds, and mobile media, it's impossible to keep up with all the action.

We just enjoyed a short (five minutes, 13 seconds) little UK film from 2005 on Atomfilms.com called "Free Speech." A husband and wife in a cramped bath fantasize about other lovers, but their imaginary menage-a-trois go wrong.

Both the actor, Danny Dyer, and actress, Jacqueline Oceane (what a great name!) are completely believable in this, restrained despite the emotional intensity, seductively voiced, and do it all sexily without showing any significant amount of flesh, although the language is talk-dirty-to-me vulgar, yet without offense. Until they take offense. Bitta bing. Play hits hangups.

More than 400,000 people have watched this film since it appeared in 2005, 3,000 plus this week.

And really, the only sex in it is verbal.

Skillfully written, acted, and directed. 24 on our 24 frame meter.

Con-Can, an International Online Short Film Festival

2006-11-24T15:10:00.000-05:00

Con-Can is yet another online venue which accepts short films for its annual film festival. Short Film fans can also view entries from the current and past festivals.

It's a well designed site featuring the work of international directors particularly heavy on Japanese and other Asian, but also Russia, Germany, the UK, and Australia, among others. The site offers a Japanese version.

"Robota" (see photo) is an offering from the 2nd Con-Can Festival of shorts. It gets a four star rating from viewers. Director Marc Beurteaux films Lego robots using stop motion animation techniques. Canadian Beurteaux won first prize for his previous film, "Tous Les Deux," at the Morbegno Film Festival in Italy in 2002.

"Robota" tells its quirky little story quickly and manages to include two robot battle scenes, one of Lego dinosaurian robots our wheeled hero bets on and the robot melee afterward which owes as much to Warner Brothers as to Ray Harryhausen (who used the same stop-motion technique in his 50s-70s classics such as Earth Vs. the Flying Saucers and Jason & the Argonauts.

The whole thing has an oddly futuristic feel, more "Blade Runner" than "Star Trek" because it's dark, but convincing in a strage way. The humor is decidedly clang-bang thank-you Robby-the-Robot, but it made me laugh several times and I bet an audience gets some real real guffaws when this is show on the screen. There's even a few sorta-scary special effects. The ending is perfect, not entirely predictable, and offers a real conclusion perfectly logical within this Lego robotland logic.

Beurteaux has talent, although in the time it takes to build Lego robots, go through the laborious stop-motion technique of shooting tiny movements so that a minute of motion on screen may take hours to film, as well as coming up with a script this good, he could probably shoot a feature. We hope he sticks with the shorts genre for a while, though. This is among the better animations we've seen this year.

21 on our 24 frame scale for "Robota."

Throw Impresses Charlotte Film Fest Audience

2006-11-20T17:00:00.000-05:00

That's James Drew, who co-wrote and co-produced the fine short film directed by Rick Fisher called "Throw." We caught both Drew and his movie at the very first Charlotte (North Carolina) Film Festival earlier this year. Photo by Renee Wright (copyright, Renee Wright, 2006)

We attend a lot of film festivals, especially in North Carolina and the Southeast U.S., our own territory. We seldom agree with the various "best of" picks at these festivals, particularly the short film winners. The judges' choices often remind us of Academy Award choices--oriented toward meaningful message films, not infrequently with a pseudo-artistic bent.

At the recent Charlotte, North Carolina film festival, we found the judges' choice of the short film "Lucas" a travesty. Watching this self-indulgent and weakly scripted piece with its lingering mirror shots of its mentally and physically challenged hero (anti-hero?) we tittered at its need to fill its already minimal screen time due to lack of real script. It had its moments, funny, tragic, and briefly interesting, but it didn't hold a patch to the short we found most moving and effective: "Throw."

We love real art when we encounter it. Real art is not the sort of pretentious BS of "Lukas," it's built on real experiences about real relationships such as those in "Throw." It also had the virtues of strong, moving performances from Michael Hardy, Robbie Lutfy, Catherine Smith, Cody Harding, and Steven Handy and of solid film-making. This isn't a film school calling-card, this movie stands on its own.

"Throw," which is based partly on the real experiences of the filmmakers, presents an admirably concise and dramatically powerful look at the choices artists must make between their love for creating and their need to pay rent and buy a new stove. In this case, the artist is a potter with a father who is more interested in seeing his son learn to paint a room than make a carefully crafted piece of pottery.

Or so it seems. The short film leads to a dramatic climax that is perfect in its revelation of the full meaning of what went before--although we are given strong forshadowing hints of it--and leaves the audience with a visercal understanding of what it all meant.

Drew says the father-son relationships of the film-makers played a role in shaping "Throw."

Many short film makers could learn more than a little about structure from "Throw."

In dramatic completeness at a short length, it reminds us of the work of Danica McKellar, the actress who portrayed Winnie Cooper in the TV show "Wonder Years," among many other roles on shows such as "The West Wing." McKellar appeared at the Riverun Film Festival at the N.C. School of the Arts in Winston-Salem earlier this year, where we saw her short film "Broken." Like "Throw," it manages complete, powerful and effective story-telling in minutes. Very impressive and up for one of our First Short Film Review Awards this year. That's Danica on the left in a photo by Allan Maurer shot at the Riverrun Festival. (Copyright, 2006, Allan Maurer).

"Throw" is also on the nominated list in several categories. If you get a chance to see it or McKellar's short films, do so.

Sundance Seeks Cell Phone Short Films

2006-11-19T16:34:00.000-05:00

The Sundance Institute will unite with the GSM Association to create a pilot film project for its annual U.S. film festival.

Partnering with the international mobile phone company, the Sundance Institute launched ae Global Short Film Project as a way to extend the film genre to millions of GSMA customers worldwide, according to a Sundance Institute news release.

"Cell phones are fast becoming the 'fourth screen' medium, after television, cinema and computers," Sundance Institute founder Robert Redford said. "We feel this experiment embodies fully, our quarter-century dedication to exploring new platforms to support wider distribution of independent voices in filmmaking."

"The emergence of mobile as the fourth screen is already changing the way people are educated and entertained," said GSMA Chief Marketing Officer Bill Gajda of the project. "This will explore the potential of the mobile medium to deliver compelling, cinematic entertainment...on an unprecedented scale."

The Sundance Film Festival: Global Short Film Project will premiere its introductory six works at Spain's 3GSM World Congress in February.

Ringo Pits John Wayne Against Roy Rogers

2006-11-18T22:54:00.000-05:00

"Ringo" pits cowboy stalwarts John Wayne and Roy Rogers in a brief cinematic duel created from more than 20 public domain films by the two stars.

Directed by Dave Monahan of the University of North Carolina at Wilmington, it unreels to the tune of Don Robertson's story-song of the same name. Monahan said at the screening that Robertson graciously permitted them to use the song in the short, which has been making the festival rounds.

Ringo is cleverly cut and paced, with the iconic images of Wayne and Rogers spliced into an artificial conflict not a lot less convincing than most of the "B" westerns they made. It's interesting that those old cowboy images can still arouse a tingle of emotion in those of us who grew up with them, but they entertain everyone.

Westerns don't hold the American imagination they once did. But for baby-boomers like me, who caught all those "B" westerns on tv at an impressionable age, there's a place in our psyhe where these images once reigned.

Even without the psychobabble, though, this short works for audiences.

It's five mintues and 30 seconds fly by as fast as Wyatt Earp on the draw. The song and the images mesh perfectly. This is purely an inspired gimmick, but it's one that works.

22 of 24 frames on our short film meter

Short Film Festivals Seek Entries

2006-11-17T14:06:00.000-05:00

Short Film Festival Oberhausen
Germany, May 3-8, 2007
Entry Deadline : January 15, 2007
See their site for submission info:

Oberhausen Short Film Festival

Tampere Short Film Festival, Finland
Finland, March 7-11,2007
Entry Deadline : December 1, 2006

Tahiti Film Festival seeks short romantic films

2006-11-16T16:35:00.000-05:00

Bora Bora is the place to be beginning Dec. 6, 2006 for the first ever Tahiti Romantic Film Festival. If you can't make it to the islands this year, you can still participate: The Tahiti Online Film Festival is seeking romantic shorts, maximum length 10 minutes. Entries are open thru Dec. 31, 2006, and FREE. The prize - very worth it - a trip for 2 to Tahiti.
Go here for more details:
tahitifilmfest's blog

The Journal of Short Film releases Volume 5

2006-11-16T15:57:00.000-05:00

Columbus, OH-- The Journal of Short Film released
Volume 5 (Fall 2006). This volume celebrates the one-year
anniversary of the Journal and maintains its commitment to diversity,
experimentation, and independent work.

The JSF is a quarterly DVD providing its subscribers collections of
exceptional, peer-reviewed short films. It was the first DVD
publication to make the Top 10 list of BEST MAGAZINES in 2005
in TheLibrary Journal.

The biggest news surrounding Volume 5 is the JSF’s focus on a single
location of vibrant filmmaking—Philadelphia. Many of the volume’s
filmmakers come from Philadelphia, and the collection demonstrates that
exciting work is happening in different communities all over the world.

Joining the editorial board for Volume 5 was Lucy Raven, NYC-based
filmmaker and co-creator of The Relay Project. The volume’s ten films
come from veterans, students, and a variety of artists in between.
Genres like “narrative” and “documentary” fail to describe the
diversity of visions found in this collection.

1. LITTLE THINGS – James Twyford and Alex Feakes (2005, 4:45)
Everything’s a game when you’re four. Until you get caught. 2. DIRT –
Chel White (1998, 4:00) A fractured tale of one man's strange
obsession. Dark and humorous, DIRT is an ecological parable for the
21st century.

3. GRAND LUNCHEONETTE – Peter Sillen (2005, 5:00) This
film documents the final days of Fred Hakim’s unforgettable 42nd Street
lunch counter. 4. THE LEGEND OF BLACK TOM – Deron Albright (2005,
16:00) When a freed slave fights for the British bare-knuckle
championship, he faces not only his opponent, but an entire nation. 5.
NOEL – Hope Tucker (2005, 5:00) A songwriter’s identity remains as
obscure as his motives for penning an American holiday standard.

6. THE ACHIEVEMENTS OF EXILE –Sara Zia Ebrahimi (2006, 12:00) A
contemplation of the connection to family in a globalized world where
fewer people live where they “came from.” Filmed in Iran.

7. YOU,STARBUCKS – Jennifer Levonian (2006, 2:05) Set in the mundane
environment of a Starbucks, a couple engages in unspoken communication.
8. Something Rubber, Something Glue – Jen Schneider (2006, 14:30)
Sibling warfare erupts over the only bathroom in the house: a private
theater for role-playing, mirror confessions, and practicing for the
“real thing.” 9. BAND OF SISTERS – Joel Fendelman (2005, 8:00) A group
of 1.15 million women and men march through Washington, D.C., in the
largest march in U.S. history. 10. REVERIES FROM CISTAE MEMORIA –
Phillip Hastings (2005, 10:35) A delicately woven dream-journey through
fragmented and reconstructed memories. Nostalgia for what may or may
not have ever happened.

The JSF continues its open submissions policy and will welcome Sam
Green as a guest editor for Volume 6 (Winter 2007). Sam’s Academy
Award-nominated film The Weather Underground sometimes overshadows the
fact that he is a renowned short film maker. The Journal is happy to
have him on board and is excited to enter its second year publishing
great independent filmmakers.

For more information go to The Journal of Short Film

Here's a good review of an earlier volume of the Journal from Curt Holman of Creative Loafing: Review of The Journal of Short Film

King of Doc Contest Offers Great Prizes for Shorts

2006-11-16T07:37:00.000-05:00

TOKION Magazine and Dewars White Label present the KING OF DOC! Contest

Call for Entries
Send us your own 3-5 minute documentary inspired by the following
themes:

MISTAKES
Some people are always looking for new kinds of mistakes to make.

CHEAP LOVE
Talk is cheap until it gets into love letters.

INTEGRITY
A man's reputation is that which is not found out about him.

All submissions will be judged by TOKION editors as well as by a panel of our celebrity judges including:
Jonathan Caouette, Filmmaker - Tarnation
Ondi Timoner, Filmaker - "DiG!"
Bruce Sinofsky, Filmaker - Metallica: Some Kind of Monster

The Winners:
We will be flying the three winners to NYC to screen the winning films with us. We will screen your film, have a party in your honor, as well as give you the opportunity to be questioned by an audience of
your peers regarding the creative process that was involved in creating your film.

The grand prize winner will be offered a $5000 contract with Dewars White Label to produce Dewars White Labels next brand-education film. Were also throwing in a new Apple MacBook Pro laptop and a copy of Apples Final Cut Pro 5.1 production suite. The second and third prize winners will receive a complete software prize package from SONY worth over $1800 - including SONY Vegas Pro and Cinescore.

Eligibility and Details:
All entrants must submit at least three copies of their film on either DVD, Mini DV or VHS format. You must be at least 25 years old to submit a film into the KING OF DOC contest. All entrants must include return address and contact information including current phone number, email and photocopy of valid ID (drivers license, non-driver state ID, passport) stating age. TOKION/Dewar's White Label is not responsible for returning any submissions.

Submissions must be postmarked no later than Dec 11th 2006.
Submissions should be sent to TOKION KING OF DOC contest C/O TOKION
Magazine 341 Lafayette Street, Suite 587, New York, NY 10012.
Winners will allow films to be screened by Dewars White Label at Dewars White Label events.
Winning films may also appear in additional future Dewars promotional spots.
For all contest info log onto www.tokion.com/kingofdoccontest.

Short Film Depot Makes Fest Submission Easier

2006-10-16T07:11:00.000-04:00

The Short Film Depot makes submitting your short movie to mulitple film festivals easier. The free service allows you to register your film once and submit to many fests without filling in many forms.

The site is also loaded with information about up coming festivals seeking entries internationally. It's a great addition to the growing number of sites worldwide that take short films seriously.

Terrific tool and already nominated for our Most Userful site award. (Our Short Atttention Span Theatre Awards will be presented in December to the best short films,(Best short drama; best short comedy, best animation, best horror short, best sci-fi short, best North Carolina short, best actor, best actress, best supporting actor/actress) directors, cinematographers, Web sites (Most Useful, Best News, Best Promotional, Best Graphics), and other categories. Nominations are open until Dec. 15. Send your nominations to Editor.

MTV leading in Internet Short Film Site Acquisitions

2006-09-23T21:00:00.000-04:00

One sign of the increasing viability of short films as a medium gaining traction as a separate genre rather than just a path to feature film making is the consolidation of online short film sites under large corporate media umbrellas:

Viacom's MTV has acquired the two leading purveyors of short films online. It has purchased both iFilm.com (which it bought last year) and Atom Entertainment, which has four sites including Atomfilms.com. It bought Atom for $200 million, which should indicate that short video online is becoming a very viable medium indeed.

The deal Al Gore's Current TV -- another short film venue -- just made with Yahoo is yet another sign pointing to the emergence of short films and videos as one of the major media forms of the future.

This trend will only increase with the proliferation of portable devices capable of showing short films, the movement of the Internet to online everywhere status, and the increasing availability of digital filmmaking equipment that can turn anyone seriously interested into a filmmaker.

Palm Spring's Shorts Fest Awards

2006-09-23T16:38:00.000-04:00

The Palm Springs International Festival of Short Films in August screened 333 short films, including 74 world, 56 North American, and 16 U.S. premieres.

First place award winners are eligible to submit to the Academy for Oscar consideration.

Norwegian director Hisham Zaman's "Bawke" won the fest's best of the festival award, which includes $2,000 and software.

Award winners receiving a first place prize are automatically eligible to submit their films to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for Oscar consideration. Norwegian director Hisham Zaman's "Bawke" won the festival's best of the festival award in the jury prizes, which includes $2,000 and a package of software. It also won best narrative short at the Toronto Worldwide Short Film Festival. It's about the travails of a father and son, both illigal immigrants to Scandinavia. Alex Weil won the Future Filmaker award, for his CG animated "One Rat Short."

The Panavision Grand Jury award went to Hubert Davis' "Aruba." His prize includes a Panavision camera package valued at $60,000 and two days studio time at Palm Spring's Casablanca Studios, so look for a feature from Davis.

Vince Marcello and Israeli Leonid Prudovsky tied for the audience favorite live action short for "Zombie Prom" and "Dark Night." Best documentary went to U.S. director Desiree Handall's "Chicken." Cameron Hood and Kyle Jefferson, both Canadians, won the audience prize for animated short with "First Flight."

Best live action over 15 minutes went to Swedish director Jens Assur's "The Last Dog in Rwanda" Best live action under 15 minutes went to comedy "Happiness" by Sophie Barthes ($2,000) ($2,000). Run Wrake's "Rabbit" won best animation, and Sam Green's "Lot 63, Grave C" won best doc. Australian cinematographer Adam Arkapaw won the Kodak Award for best student cinematography for "The City Eats its Weak" and best student doc went to "Going Home" by Hung P. Nguyen and Juliet Porter's "Breathe" and Andrea Janakas' "Gypsies, Tramps and Thieves" won best student live action prizes in the "under 15 minutes" and "over "15 minutes" categories respectively.

Short Films Site From Iran

2006-09-22T07:30:00.000-04:00

Short Film News, a site which began in Iran in 2004, has launched an English language edition at Short Film News

Marjan Riaji, the site's attractive and intelligent editor and director, says that it focuses on Iranian short films and documentaries but is also covering short film events worldwide. It has an excellent list of festivals relevant to short film makers and links to a number of Iranian short films.

In this stressful time of discord between the U.S. and Iran, arts may do more to bring us together than diplomacy. In fact, the arts are diplomacy. The universality of the human experience comes through in movies as it does in travel itself. Iran has produced top notch feature filmmakers for quite a while and if Short Film News is any guide, its short film scene is equally vibrant.

We'll be reviewing some of the short films available via links on the site. As Riaji says in her "About Us" essay, the short film form has evolved beyond being merely a filmmaker's entry to features, becoming a genre unto itself.

We hope to establish and ongoing relationship with Short Film News and other such sites worldwide, but meanwhile, go on over and have a look.

TCM Showing Day of Great Short Films

2006-09-07T20:03:00.000-04:00

The Turner Classic Movie Channel airs “The Shorts Circuit” Wednesday, Sept. 15 over a 24-hour period offers a rare chance to view the short films of a bevy of major directors, including Alfred Hitchcock, Martin Scorsesse, David Lynch, Stanley Kubrick, Francois Truffaut, Roman Polanski, Chris Marker (La Jetee, done entirely in stills but for one frame), Fred Zinneman, Jacques Tourneur (who directed the Val Lewton produced “Cat People,” and “I Walked with a Zombie,” Ridley Scott, Tony Scott, and Jane Campion, not to mention some of Chaplin and Keaton’s best.

Get your VCR or DVD recorders ready, because this is a veritable college course in the history of the short film.

In several cases, such as the Polanski and Scorsese shorts, the films are the work the directors did in film school, a route still often taken by budding directors today. Polanski’s “Two Men and Waredrobe,” made while he was in film school in Poland in 1958, was once a stable of college film societies.

A number of the French “New Wave” directors of the 1960s, including Truffaut, also began their careers making short films.

Veteran Hollywood directors George Sidney and George Marshall provide diverting entertainments. Sidney’s “Hollywood Hobbies” was written by Morey Amsterdam, who later played a comedy writer on the Dick Van Dyke show on TV. It portrays classic MGM stars such as Clark Gable and Spencer Tracy at leisure.

Several of Tourneur’s shorts are narrated by Pete Smith. Smith, chidf of MGM’s publicity department during the Hollywood studio’s heyday, also starred in a series of his own shorts called Pete Smith specialties, which I remember seeing in theatres as late as the 1950s and which TCM runs fairly often.

The show includes a rerun of TCM’s documentary about “Added Attractions: Hollywood Shorts.”

Look for additional posts before and after this day long festival of shorts.

Here's TCM's guide to the films: The Shorts Circuit

X-Gen Showing at Reel to Reel Friday Night

2006-07-20T17:24:00.000-04:00

"X-GEN" is a feature-length dark comedy about the destruction of Generation X. It's made by Sea Shanty Films:David Brigham, Matt Long, and David Wilmington. It screens Friday,July 21 in the evening at the Reel to Reel festival in King's Mountain. The festival is a cheap date: you can watch an entire evening of shorts and features from all over the world for a mere $7.50.

SeaShanty did its first film, a short satire of 1950's educational filmstrips entitled "The Wing Nut and You!", in January of 2004. It got airplay on Second Cinema, one of our favorite shows on Time-Warner leased accessl, and on NC Visions, the very well done UNC-TV annual show featuring NC filmmakers.

They're looking at options for wider distribution, but check out their Web site for lots more about the filmmakers, their work, a photo gallery from its premiere and more.

Reel to Reel Has Lots of Shorts

2006-07-20T12:18:00.000-04:00

This weekend's Reel To Reel Film Festival in King's Mountain has a ton of shorts, including animation from the up-and-coming Out of Our Minds studio in the Triad, NC.

Check out the details at our other blog: http://ncflix.blogspot.com

I Want to Be A Pilot Premieres

2006-06-21T11:58:00.000-04:00

I WANT TO BE A PILOT, is a poignant short based a narrative poem set in Kibera, Nairobi; the largest slum in East Africa.

Written and directed by Diego Quemada Diez, I WANT TO BE A PILOT is a poem based on interviews with 50 orphans from Raila Educational Center in Kibera. The film conveys the desire of a young boy that wants to fly away from the harsh real life experiences of the slums. Shot on location in Kibera, Nairobi.

The film will make its European premiere at the Huesca Film Festival Thursday, June 8, 2006 at 7:30pm. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science® has elected to recognize Huesca Film Festival as a qualifying festival for the Short Films category for their Oscar® Awards. Recipients of the Premio Danzante – Iberoamerican and International Category - will qualify for consideration.

The North American Premiere at the Los Angeles Independent Film Festival will be Sunday, June 25, 2006 at 1:15pm, it will screen again Thursday, June 25 at 10:00pm. The LAFF held annually for ten days in June, showcases the best of American and International cinema. With an attendance of over 60,000, the festival screens over 175 narrative features, documentaries, shorts, and music videos. Now in its twelfth year, the festival has grown into a world-class event, uniting new filmmakers with critics, scholars, film masters, and the movie-loving public.

Diego Quemada Diez was born in Burgos, Spain. He is an accomplished filmmaker who has worked in film for over twelve years. He started his film career working as a camera assistant for British director Ken Loach (“Land and Freedom”, “Carla’s Song”). At the end of the 90’s he made his first trip to the United States and graduated in 2001 from The American Film Institute (AFI). His thesis film, “A Table is a Table”, was screened at film festivals worldwide, it won the 2001 USA Winner Robert Surtees Heritage Award for Outstanding Achievement In Cinematography by The American Society of Cinematographers (ASC). It continued to garner awards through 2003 at II Festival de Cine Creatrivas (1st Prize), Octubre Corto (1st Prize), Best Short Festival de Alcalá de Henares (2nd Prize) and SOLO PARA CORTOS Winner Special Jury Prize. Since then he has combined the development of his projects as a Director and working as a cinematographer. As a camera operator he has collaborated with directors in films like “Bread and Roses” by Ken Loach, “21 Grams” by Alejandro Gonzalez Iñarritu, “She Hate Me” and “SFC” by Spike Lee and “The Constant Gardener” by Fernando Meirelles. After he finished “The Constant Gardener” he remained in Kenya to film I WANT TO BE A PILOT.

His artistic exploration does not end with film; he has also written a soon to be published poetry book called “I Dreamed I Found My Octogonal Room”.

Atom Film Blog

2006-05-31T20:35:00.000-04:00

Hi folks. We've been all tied up at our day job putting out a regional magazine lately, but we did manage to attend the world's largest film premiere, Disney/Pixar's "Cars" at Lowe's Motor Speedway in North Carolina, where we saw Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward, Tony Shahloub ("Monk"), Kathryn Helmond, Bonnie Hunt, Cheech Marin, and a slew of other celebs.

NC is the place to be outside of LA and NYC when it comes to film festivals and catching a star these days. At Full Frame in April in Durham we caught "Tootsie" director and sometimes actor Sydney Pollock, Ken Burns, and assorted other name celebs. Take a look at our http://ncflix.blogger.com blog or www.ncflix.com site to see pix.

I know this is off the short film topic, but these film fests are where we catch a lot of the cutting edge work in the genre.

Meanwhile, here's something that is on topic: check the Atom Films blog for links to some of Atom's more interesting offerings:

http://blog.atomfilms.com/

The Whistler at Trunk Films

2006-04-22T09:38:00.000-04:00

"The Whistler," a short, SouthPark like animation by Layla Atkinson of Trunk films may not please kitty lovers, but it manages a miniature version of those old Looney Tunes' elaborate animal machinations. The bird in this one minute epic may be caged, but it's no birdbrain.

"The Whistler" and other very short, clever animations from Trunk directors are available on their Web site: Trunk

Highly recommended animations! They're funny, subversive, different, and very effective.

This was another of Indiefilm's top ten funny choices from Aspen's Short Film fest.

23 of a 24 frame rating for Trunk.

If There Were No Lutherans, Would There Still Be Green Jello?

2006-04-22T09:17:00.000-04:00

"If There Were No Lutherans, Would There Still Be Green Jello?" by Minnesotan Gayle Knutson, is about the hilarious signs posted regularly by Rev. Steve Molin, pastor of Our Savior’s Lutheran Church in Stillwater, Minnesota, on the Church marquee.

They include such messages as: "In Eternity, only three things matter: Location, Location, Location." Molin is obviously a very funny guy. He advertises his Sunday remarks this way: "Have trouble sleeping? The Pastor's sermons are avaiable on tape."

You can check out the rather inadequate trailer, buy the dvd and book and learn more here: Jello

Reviews of Aspen Shortsfest: Choque

2006-04-22T08:45:00.000-04:00

Kim Adelman,the author of "The Ultimate Filmmaker's Guide to Short Films" reviews the funniest shorts at the recent (April 5) Aspen Shortsfest over at Indie Wire's new Shorts section. The best shorts inevitably make the round of festivals internationlly and many are now available online, a great boon to the short film fan or short filmmaker. Filmmakers could certainly learn a few things from the elegant, action-oriented structure of "Choque."

Adelman's list of the funniest shorts at Aspen includes "Choque," (Crash)by Spanish director Nacho Vigalondo, who was nominated for an Oscar for his last short film, ""7:35 in the Morning."

I didn't find it particularly funny. It's a bumper-car version of Latin machismo carried to extremes and the title is certainly apt. Here's a bit of bumper car inside info (I used to run the bumper car ride at an amusement park summers as a teenager) - there's only one front wheel and it goes in one direction, so you turn it completely around once to reverse direction. Which is why so many people, like the hero of Choque, get stuck in corners). The hero of Choque certainly gets turned around in more ways than one in this 10 minute 2005 short. His gorgeous date becomes the target of a group of young punks, evoking his ire (and idiocy). It's well shot, moves fast and has a clearly defined beginning, middle and end. In fact, the funniest and most defining line in the film is the last one. You can watch it for yourself (ain't the Interet wonderful?) here:
CHOQUE

Project TV Short Film Contest offers loot

2006-04-22T08:34:00.000-04:00

TheProject.TV is a new online entertainment platform for launching film projects and contests that give producers & directors the opportunity to display their work and be recognized & rewarded for their efforts. Projects hosted on this site may be public or private and are geared towards the independent producer and director. Work for hire projects will also be posted to our site in an effort to create not only a viewing platform, but a market place for buyers and producers.

TheProject.TV will host a series of contests in an effort to build a viewing audience which centers on the producers & directors and their ability to create quality content. The more popular your films are, the greater your chances are of winning the contests and developing business relationships with traditional and online media and entertainment companies.

Project 1: 3 Episode Short Film Mini Series Contest

To kick off TheProject.TV website and create awareness, the first of several projects launched will be a Short Film Contest for enrolled College and University film students. Similar to American Idol and other Reality TV mini series, the contest uses a process of elimination to determine a winner. In order to win, a Director’s short film mini series must successfully make it through 3 rounds of new episodes without being eliminated by popular vote. The winners are those Producer/Directors whose film episodes received the most votes in the final round.

Prizes awarded the winners are as follows:

First Place - $25,000 Cash + Prizes
Second Place - $10,000 Cash
Third Place - $5,000 Cash

Get the lowdown here: Project TV Short Film Contest

Indie Wire short film site

2006-04-10T21:50:00.000-04:00

The Indie Wire Short Film page is outstanding for its comprehensive coverage of news about the short film world.

It's so good we're going to refer you there and to the Shortsheet (see links on the sidebar) for news like a good blogger should.

I was sorry to see their syndication option disappear. We carried it over at www.bestfilmfests.com and www.NCflix.com.

I'm actually glad to see someone with their obvious firepower cover news about shorts this comprehensively. It allows me to focus on interpretation, evalutation, and assorted levels of analysis, from pop cultural reverberations to Barthes-like demythologizing.

What the heck was that I just said? Geeeeeezzzzzzoooo, Al.

Anyway, if you're interested in short film news, surf on over to the Indie Films site and check out their page.

Magnolia to Show Oscar Nominated Shorts

2006-04-09T10:54:00.000-04:00

Photo from Oscar Nominated short, "The Mysterious Geographical Explorations of Jasper Morelloby

Magnolia Pictures and Shorts International announced a partnership to bring this year's 10 Oscar-nominated shorts (live-action and animated) to theaters before the Academy Award ceremony on March 5. The series kicks off Friday, February 24, in New York and Los Angeles. It will also play in select theaters in San Francisco, Detroit, Berkeley, Atlanta, Seattle, Denver, Austin, Portland and Chicago. The two distribution companies anticipate adding more markets in the coming weeks.

Danica McKellar (Winnie Cooper) makes short films

2006-03-31T16:52:00.000-05:00

Photo copyright 2006 by Allan Maurer ARR.

Danica McKellar, who played Winnie Cooper on "The Wonder Years" TV show that I and so many other baby boomers recall for its bittersweet portrait of growing up in the 1960s, accompanied her short film "Broken" to the RiverRun film festival in Winston-Salem, NC, in March.

"Broken" is an exquisitely filmed (on 35mm widescreen)six minute short that explores a woman's drastic attempt to heal her broken heart. It opens with superb piece of expository filmmaking, getting everything you need to know across with a few opening images as the credits roll. It's an impressive piece of work and I hope to see her other two shorts.

McKellar answering questions after the event said she's just learning the craft of filmmaking and storytelling, but this one certainly shows some mastery of the essential elements. Though shorter than many we see, it nevertheless manages a complete beginning, middle and end. If there's a single fault we see most often, it is the lack of same that scuttles many an otherwise fine short film effort.

Danica says she would be interested in making a film about a woman scientist or math whiz--which she is herself, having majored in math and managing to prove a theorem as an undergrad. She impressed us with her at ease courtesy despite her admission during the Q&A that she has a somewhat "dark" take on thing in "Broken."

I'd bet real money that Danica McKellar, now 30, will make an impressive feature film debut, but in the meanwhile, her short films are worth seeking out.

Pinwheel Short Film Festival April 1

2006-03-31T16:48:00.000-05:00

North Carolina State University presents its annual Pinwheel Short Film Festival Saturday, April 1st at the Witherspoon Student Center on the Raleigh campus.

They feature short films from regional filmmakers, most from North Carolina, annually.

If you're a filmmaker in the Carolinas, add this one to your list. There's submission info on the site.

Free and open to the public, Pinwheel schedules 26 short films between 12 noon and 5 pm.
For the complete lineup, visit:
Pinwheel Film Festival

Century City Shorts Fest Gets Attention

2006-03-09T20:47:00.000-05:00

3rd Annual CENTURY CITY SHORTS & SCREENPLAY COMPETITION:
www.CenturyCityFilmFestival.com/

The festival says previous winners have had their projects optioned and landed representation. They include testimonials on their site link.

Each screenplay and short is reviewed at least two times. Our 2005 1st place winner received a YES and NO prior tomaking the Top 30.

Prizes valued at over $10,000include: Cash, FujiFilm, Digital Sound License, Final Draft S-ware, etc. Awards party for Finalists where you'll meet agents, managers, production company repps, etc.

REGISTER ONLINE at:
http://www.CenturyCityFilmFestival.com

Largest Short Film Festival in America Coming

2006-03-09T20:42:00.000-05:00

The largest short film festival in America comes to Palm Springs this August. Here's the early buzz:

The 12th annual PALM SPRINGS INTERNATIONAL FESTIVAL OF SHORT FILMS AND FILM MARKET will be held August 24 - 30, 2006.

Palm Springs ShortFest features over 300 short films on three screens and film market facilities presenting over 2,200 shorts. More than 20 awards of cash and/or film stock are given in 10 categories.

All submitted films are eligible for market participation for no additional fee. Winning films in live action and animation are automatically qualified for nomination consideration by AMPAS.

Special student film section with awards and reduced entry fees. Fee $30 - $50 (Early Entry, April 7, 2006; Regular Entry, May 12, 2006) E-mail: info@psfilmfest.org;

Web site: www.psfilmfest.org for more info.

Fifth Annual Cine Noir festival in Wilmington

2006-02-28T15:47:00.000-05:00

Cine Noir: A Festival of Black Film

Thursday, March 2 – Sunday, March 5

Reception Hall, Cameron Art Museum in Wilmington, NC

Sponsored by The Black Arts Alliance, in conjunction with Cameron Art Museum

The four-day jury and invitational festival of independent motion pictures by African-American filmmakers will showcase feature-length, short subject, animation, music videos, and documentary films. Other highlights include Distinguished and Emerging Filmmaker Award winners, Kiddy Cinema, and free workshops.

The 2006 Emerging Filmmaker Award winner is music video director Lenny Bass. The 2006 Trailblazer Award winner is Dwayne McDuffie, co-creator of the Cartoon Network's hit animation series "The Justice League". Both will attend the festival.

For tickets and more information, call the Black Arts Alliance office at 910-350-2681 or visit its website:
Fifth Annual Cine Noir: A Festival of Black Film

Short films for cell phones?

2006-02-27T17:54:00.000-05:00

The New York Times reports that New Corp is exploring developing very short films for delivery to cell phones. They say:

"In what is the boldest venture yet by an established media company to insinuate itself into millions of cellphones, the News Corporation has created a mobile entertainment store called Mobizzo and a production studio to focus exclusively on developing cellphone entertainment."

Read article

Riverrun Shows Its Shorts

2006-02-24T12:15:00.000-05:00

The Winston Salem, NC Riverrun International Film Festival is showing its shorts program at various venues in North Carolina's Triad region. For an update, see our other site, NCFlix.

Beverly Hills Shorts Festival Presents Eclectic Mix

2006-02-21T18:29:00.000-05:00

The Beverly Hills Short Film festival this weekend, Feb. 24-26, has a strong mix of dramatic and genre offerings -- "Zombie Prom" (see first photo below) and "Beyond Blue, Mankind's Deepest Dive," "Balloon Animals," (third photo) and "Rose," (fourth pic) got my attention with their promo art. Lot's of the others look equally intriquing.

Beverly Hills Shorts Festival This weekend

2006-02-21T18:14:00.000-05:00

The Beverly Hills Shorts Festival runs from Feb. 24 to 26 this year. It has an outstanding lineup of short films that it's location in LA means the films get viewed by an influential audience.

Shorts Programs Can be Tops

2006-02-21T17:44:00.000-05:00

A number of critics and many viewers have said for years that documentaries are often the best films at Sundance and many another festival.

These days, we often find that festival shorts programs are among their strongest offerings and sometimes far outdo the features in creativity, production values, cinematography and other qualities. This weekend, the "Nevermore Horror Film Festival" in Durham, NC, presented a number of intriquing features, but the programmers themselves admitted the shorts program equaled if not bettered the features lineup.

Horror and sci-fi shorts often work better than other genres, or it could be we're just prejudiced toward those genres generally. In any case, "Feast of Souls," "Snow Day, Bloody Snow Day," and "The Last Piece Standing," entertained and amused me and my journalist colleagues as much as any feature at Nevermore.

"The Big Thing," was nominated for a Genie Award, the Canadian equivalent of the Oscars, for best live action short. It is lusciously shot and won a slew of festival awards. You can buy a copy here's the site: The BIG Thing.

I was impressed by the feature work of Andrew van den Houten, director and producer of "Headspace." Although this is his first feature, he did something like 15 short films prior to "Headspace," and I'm going to see if any are out there, because I'd sure like to see them.

"Headspace" had the added attraction of honest-to-movies stars: Olivia Hussey, William Atherton, Udo Kier, and Sean Young. Orson Welles and John Cassevettes used to maintain that performances were more central to the success or failure of a movie than direction, and in many cases, I'm inclined to agree with them. "Headspace" has good performances thoughout and not just by the established stars.

Hello, Thanks, at Sundance

2006-02-14T19:01:00.000-05:00

I enjoyed a number of shorts shown at this year's Sundance Film Festival that I haven't managed to review yet. They include Andy Blubaugh's eight-minute color documentary about his year as a "GWM, scruffy, 5'7"..." in the personal ads.

It's called "Hello, Thanks." (Click on the link to watch)

Andy discovers that the writing the ads turns him on in a way none of the resulting relationships seem to, not unusual, as he says, for someone who's spent a lot more time with words than with people.

This film is well shot from an often unique point of view and I mean that on several levels. The camerawork, while never self-consciously arty, conveys a slightly off-center attitude reflected in Blubaugh, which you see primarily in the personal ads.

If you can read them. One good thing about seeing this on the Internet is that you can watch it a second time and read the bottom half of his longer messages. They're outrageous and hilarious and revealing. But I read pretty fast and I couldn't catch all of those longer ads the first time through. But they're worth reading all the way through. I bet this film got some hearty laughs during its Sundance run, because even the shorter readable ads grow increasingly hysterical - and hysterically funny, maybe a little sad too sometimes.

I think that must be Andy's sister Amber --she's billed as Amber Blubaugh-- he's chatting with in the film. She's a high verbal like he is and they have that sibling resemblance, although I could be wrong. She has some of the best lines, which I won't give away here. Not that I necessarily agree with her, but they are good lines, poetic even.

Andy's relationships may not have a lot of closure, but in a way, those words in his ads are a path to self-discovery for him that gives this film a sense of closure. If I wanted to get into the spirit of this film, I'd play around with the word "climax" here.

Another film I enjoyed and will review later is "Exoticore," not to mention numerous others I have more mixed feelings toward. You can catch them all here: Sundance Shorts

These films are generously made available on the Internet by the filmmakers and Sundance people so that we can all watch them, and in case you haven't noticed previously, in this blog the title is a link that takes you to the film where you can watch it too. I saw a blog recently with a "Watch Now" button I may steal. But anyway, I hope more film festivals adopt this policy of making their short films availalbe online for a time. It will greatly enhance their exposure and impact.

Short Film Archive Has Lofty Goals

2006-02-14T18:17:00.000-05:00

Another excellent resource for those interested in short films, particularly their history and development from the beginning of film to the present, which we found via "The Short Sheet" is the UNLV Short Film Archive.

Here's their mission statement from the site:

"The goal of the UNLV Short Film Archive is to establish a comprehensive collection of significant short films from all over the world from the beginning of filmmaking to the present.

"The cornerstone of the archive will be the Archive 100, the one-hundred most significant shorts, culturally, historically or aesthetically, selected by an international panel of film historians, recognized film festival programmers, film producers, directors, distributors and recognized short film scholars.

"The UNLV Short Film Archive will acquire, preserve, restore and archive these most important shorts and subsequently make them available to an international constituency of acade
mic faculty, scholars, students and professionals."

We wish them well with their goals and plan to send them some continuing traffic as we review some of the archived films and keep you posted on what they're up to.

Check Out The Short Sheet Blog

2006-02-14T17:54:00.000-05:00

Jon Ponder runs "The Short Sheet," a very good blog about short films, not dissimilar from ours, although less review and more news oriented.

Jon tells us, "I started publishing my research, basically, in the Short Sheet in June 2004. Jon is a former North CArolina resident who lived in and around Charlotte, where he majored in theatre at UNCC.

You'll find lots of useful resources in the posts and links at The Short Sheet.

Coney Island Short Film Fest call for entries

2006-02-09T20:13:00.000-05:00

The 6th Annual Coney Island Film Festival will take place October 6 - 8, 2006. Call for entries will be announced mid February. If you would like to be contacted about this or any other events indiefilmpage.com presents, join their announcement email list.

Here's the Website:

http://www.indiefilmpage.com/coneyfest.html

IFC Short Web Movies Go to TV

2006-02-09T17:46:00.001-05:00

IFC plans to show short films selected from those submitted to their Website, where viewers will decide which get a run on the cable channel between features. Ya gotta love IFC for everything they do if you're a fan of Indie cinema.

They're going to be on the forefront of giving short films an excellent venue for exposure, evaluation and evolution.

Let's face it, it you're a "movie geek" as Quentin Tarantino likes to put it, independent films deliver a lot more punch than a whole lotta Hollywood fodder aimed at making a buck, and IFC brings them to us properly, without commercials, widescreen, and uncut. I don't mind a movie actually making money. But my favorite films these days are small flicks like "Junebug."

Yet, I also loved Peter Jackson's "King Kong," which many another movie buff liked as much as I did. That's the only movie over two hours, let alone three, that I ever made it through without going to the bathroom at least once. Must be the caffiene in those diet cokes. Those in-jokes recursively referring back to the original were absolutely hilarious and kinda moving at the same time.

But I digress. Then again, what the heck would a blog be without digressions? It's such a pleasurably personal form of communication, rather free of a certain commercial influence that subtly affects so much journalism these days.

I guess the key points I'm flapping around here are that indie films show what you can do with minimal budgets and maximum creativity, while the opposite is often true from major studios.

One of the reasons I love short films is that they show so much creativity. You see technical expertise at dazzling and visually compelling levels that makes you overlook many of their, pardon the pun, short-comings.

I'd love to see more short film makers focus on creating a really strong, moving, effective short movie with a satisfying climax. "Gopher Broke," "Exoticore," "Moma's Boy," and "Robin's Big Date," among some others, managed this fairly well among those at this year's Sundance festival (see earlier reviews of same or look for forthcoming ones).

Here's the piece about IFC's new short film initiative, which supports my contention that short films are going to acquire a major media significance faster than you can say abracadabra. Well, maybe not quite THAT fast. But pretty quick, my compadres.

IFC Web Movies

Oscar-Nominated "Shorts" to Screen in NYC

2006-02-08T14:09:00.000-05:00

Today the Academy announced special screenings in New York:

"On Saturday, February 25, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences will present two public screenings of the ten Oscar-nominated films in the Animated Short and Live Action Short categories. The screenings will feature the five films from each category, providing a rare opportunity for New York moviegoers
to see the nominees prior to the 78th Academy Awards® telecast on Sunday, March 5."
For a list of films and screening time and location, visit:
Oscar-Nominated "Shorts" to Screen in NYC

Photo courtesy of the A.M.P.A.S. ARR. Here: the statuettes of the 78th Academy Awards are on display in a public exhibition, “Meet the Oscars: The 50 Golden Statuettes,” at the Hollywood & Highland Center® in Hollywood, California.

Action Cut Short Film Competition Open

2006-02-07T07:16:00.000-05:00

ACTION/CUT 2006 SHORT FILM COMPETITION - Call For Entries:

Deadline: May 15. Action/Cut sponsors the only industry-driven short film competition annually and opens doors to winners with 125 prizes valued at over $50,000 including career-enhancing meetings with Hollywood players and crucial talent promotions for furthering careers.

They invite you to view their 2005 winning films at their Website including the Grand Prize winner & Best of Category winners.

Enter your film and ignite your career with the most prizes of any shorts film competition in the world.

Categories: Fiction Live Action - Documentary - Animation - Student Films - Music Videos. Online entry form at http://www.actioncut.com. Visit to view excellence-in-filmmaking winners and their career-changing comments on winning Action/Cut.

Famous Short Film Festival Coming to NC

2006-02-06T20:38:00.000-05:00

The 28th Clermont-Ferrand Short Film Festival is coming to the University of North Carolina at Wilmington. The Clermont-Ferrand is second only to Cannes as a film festival in France. Last year it drew 135,000 spectators.

The festival offers a generous variety of genres and perspectives in part one of a two-part series.

On February 9th, the 90-minute program includes some of the very best shorts from such countries as Argentina, Belgium, Israel and Norway, and presents a festival mixing film and digital medium. The screening will be followed by a discussion with Dan Brawley, director of the Cucalorus Film Festival in Wilmington, NC.

Next week on Feb.16 they offer a program of French short films.

Sundance Short Film Winners

2006-02-04T12:38:00.000-05:00

"Bugcrush," directed by Carter Smith, won the jury prize in the 2006 short film program.

"Bugcrush" is a creepy little short about two high school loners, one of whom turns out to be much weirder than the other suspected. It's done in 16mm and on my small screen looks good enough for any big screen. The acting and technique are impeccable and the story engaging. I do so wish to see short films with more satisfying endings, though.

The winnerand the two runners up, "Before Dawn," and "Preacher With an Unknown God," demonstrate sophisticated filmmaking technique. It's difficult to believe that "Preacher" was shot on DV, but it was. "Preacher," is quite literally dazzling at times with its evangelical congregations, interspersed bus-window travelogs, its continually moving camera, sharp cutting, low angles, and tracking shots, its ribbons of color and character whipping continually by, all their own hypnotic attraction. Rob VanAlkemade directed. Although VanAlkemade has been a cinematographer, sound recordist, producer, director and editor on a number of projects, his credits do not appear to include music videos or commercials. His techique has a bit of that quickcut feel, that razzamatazz of images. I like it myself, but if you don't, you won't like "Preacher."

"Before Dawn" is the most subtle and sedate of the three, but has it's own simple charm that reminds a little of Kielslowski because of its stark, nearly colorless pre-dawn gray-blue landscape. Early on, there's a lovely film moment when the people come out of the fields to get on the truck.

None of these folks have publicity photos up at the Sundance press site, or Web sites with publicity material. We'd be happy to provide budget sites or more elaborate ones to film makers who find themselves headed to major festivals or those actively promoting their work.

We would ask independent reviewers to comment on client work in the future on this or other sites of ours, but we do provide professional copywriting along with our site development.

If interested, send us an email:
Editor

Gopher Broke at Sundance Made Us Laugh

2006-01-28T21:36:00.000-05:00

"Gopher Broke," an animation showing in the Sundance 2006 Short Film program, reminds me of both classic Disney and Warner Brother's Cartoons. The Gopher has worse luck than Wylie Coyote in the Road Runner cartoons and never fares anywhere so well as the Disney Gophers.

This fella, unnamed but winningly animated, whether by computer or by hand, and who cares when it's this good, is entertaining. He coulda done Broadway. I would love to see another of cartoon starring this character. Those rolling eyes never worked better.

This four-minute extravaganza made me laugh aloud several times with sight gags worthy of Chuck Jones, famous for giving characters such as Wylie an expression showing they recognize their fate, among other things. Geez, this little gem plays with cartoon cliches and turns them to new purpose. Despite its clear influences, this is no slavishly imitative effort. The animation itself is often ravishing.

It ends with a perfectly classic, ah, end. You'll see what I mean when you watch it.

Credits:
directors:
Jeff Fowler, Tim Miller
Screenwriter,
Jeff Fowler
Executive Producer
Tim Miller
Producer
Al Shier
Animation Supervisor
Marlon Nowe
Lighting/Compositing Supervisor
Dan Rice
Concept Design
Chuck Wojtkiewicz, Sean McNally

There's a terrific bit of harmonica early on that I appreciated as a blues harmonica player, but really, it has a nice score reminescent of the best classic toons throughout, from lush orchestration to that single harmonica.

This is very much one of my favorites among the Sundance short films I've watched so far. I expect to go back and give it another look, and I've already watched it three times.

True North, Rape, and A Half Man at Sundance

2006-01-28T12:45:00.000-05:00

(Photo from director Lovinsa Kavuna's, "Rape for Who I Am," examines the way men regard South African lesbians as targets for their sexual assaults. Something of a pc-niche-cause, maybe, not unworthly, but not exactly up there with world hunger and AIDS.

I loved the imagery of this technically sophisticated 14-minute film. Surrealistic shots of Johanisberg, powerful close-ups of the people, and the moderate use of multi-screen and other effects are all put to good use. I actually found the film-making more compelling than the story documented. Kavuna also did the ravishing cinematography.

"True North," another 14-minute short at Sundance, is an impressionistic look at the story of Matthew Henson, a black man servant who accompanied Robert E. Perry's 1909 arctic expedition and may have been the first person to reach the North Pole, or so says the film's promotional material.

Isaac Julien directed somewhat expressionistically. Nearly all the shorts Sundance shows are technically interesting even when their stories -- as here -- are a bit weak. I thought this story in particular had more potential for development than we get here, but then again, I have to ask myself just what I want from 14-minute films, anyway.

I did think the film's "creative" description on the Sundance site is academic twaddle. It describes the film thus: "Here the sublime moment of cognition of the image is presented to the mind itself, which in turn can only comprehend the absolute of magnitude which itself defied conceptualization."

Whew! Fortunately, the film itself is not that dense, but personally, we hope the film-maker sticks to images. A wordsmith he isn't.

"A Half Man," by Firas Momani, is a five-minute exercise in surrealistic animation. A man, played by what looks a lot like one of those transparent dolls that reveal the inside of a body, has trouble adjusting in society because his insides are falling out. Now that's a problem!

The first half of this little film drags and feels padded, but the very funny second half reignited my interest and took me home. It's helped by clever sound effects (Julian Pasieka gets kudos for those) and a effective minimalist music score.

It reminded me at times of Cronenberg's version of "The Fly," (Jeff Goldblum's transformation when pieces of his body began falling off) and partly of Tim Burton's recent "Corpse Bride," although not to the point of outright imitation.

I found this one of the more compelling shorts I've seen so far.

By the way, if you're interested in reviewing short films for this site, drop us a line. We'd love to have a few more fans of short films on board.

Robin's (as in Batman and Robin) Big Date at Sundance

2006-01-22T22:15:00.000-05:00

The first four Sundance shorts we viewed were dramtic and serious, although not without jokes. Even the most serious of drama should have a sense of humor.

Still, we watched "True North," and "Moma's Boy," and "You turned Your back and held my hand," more or less at random and found them strong stories elegantly told. But we tried "Robin's Big Date," as an exercise in throwing a change-up, to borrow baseball terminology. It suggested a lighter turn with its focus on a lecherous and profane Batman horning in on Robin, the boy wonder's big date.

All, but the humor faded in the face of the pathos. Poor Robin. Pathetic Batman. Only the girl (Callie Thorne), not Robin's date after all, it seems, aquits herself well. The super heroes prove less than super and not very heroic.

I'm sure I'll find some humor in this stellar collection of shorts. But this is not it. I liked it fine for what it actually is, though, a takeoff on our cultural pop icons thrown into the less-than-perfect real world via the reel world.

This has got to be the seediest Batman we've ever seen, but not that much of a stretch from Frank Miller's postmodern take on the character.

Written by William Carlough and directed by James Duffy, the short if Duffy's first as a director (he's a film editor based in NYC). It's certainly an original concept, although I find many of the shorts I see somewhat over-acted, although anyone who's seen the 60s TV series would be hard-pressed to out do that duo. Sam Rockwell's Batman tries to steal Robin's (Justin Long)date. Yuk. That ain't my Batman.

Anyone familiar with Batman and Robin from the comix or the films or even the TV show will likely enjoy this take on the Bat detective and the "Boy Wonder," as Robin used to be billed.

You turned your back and held my hand

2006-01-22T21:52:00.000-05:00

Gabriela Tollman's "You Turned Your Back and Held My Hand," a 6-minute short showing at the 2006 Sundance film fest and availble online at festival.sundance.org/2006/watch/film.aspx?which=486&category=F

Tollman, a native of South Africa and graduate of UCLA's School of Film won a Cinematography award at Cannes and an LA short film grant. You can see why she would win a cinematography award from watching this well-shot film.

This sensual exercise in recording love on film evokes a warmly engaging sense of touch. You can almost smell the sweet heady aroma of sex when these lovers thread their fingers through each other's hair, the closeups of eyes, of eyelashes, of golden smooth skin and melding bodies.

Many short films resort to collage and montage to collapse time. This one collapes emotion. It forgoes extensive plot to extend effect and does it well.

The imagery carries this short film right into your skin. You'll feel it viscerally rather than intellectually, and isn't that the essence of what short film should be?

Reviews of Sundance Shorts: Moma's Boy

2006-01-22T21:34:00.000-05:00

"Moma's Boy," directed by John Bryant, showing at the 2006 Sundance Film Festival, reminds me of Harold Pinter's "Homecoming." It's not particularly "Pinteresque" in its dialog. But the idea of potent family drama underlying a Thanksgiving family visit is.

A young man (Jason Foxworth) brings his fiance home for a Thanksgiving dinner and the dialog with his brother (Mark Reeb), father, and significant others rides along one of those sibling roller coasters that make your stomach roil. It's embarassing to watch real drama, particularly that which is intimate and disturbing, not so much because it's extreme as because it's soooooo real.

Reeb plays a sadistic game with his sibling, teasing him that he was adopted, despite their father's protests that the statement is untrue. Brothers are not the only ones who wreck such intimate emotional havoc on each other. All sorts of people with intimate knowledge of us can engage in this sort of edgy, dangerous and dramtic fireworks.

Most family dramas don't escalate into the actual violence this one does, but we've all experienced some form of teasing -- perhaps from a school bully or a buddy or a co-worker if not family -- in which the teasing approaches psychological torture.

"Moma's Boy" moves from family dialog to a literally electric finish. The Tazer massacre and bloody noses that bring this particular Freudian case study to a close climax in Reeb's fiendish laughter as he realizes just how successful he has been at getting inside his brother's head.

You might find yourself laughing a bit yourself, at the end, the kind of nervous laughter elicited by a horror movie.

Check out the director's Website: John Bryant

View Sundance Shorts Online

2006-01-22T16:25:00.000-05:00

I’ve started watching the Sundance short films available at the festival Web site. These are not your average short films. I watched four in succession and each held me with expert use of the digital medium, compelling imagery, intriguing stories or ideas or both, and clever execution.

I learned these would be online from one of the film-makers, who stumbled upon our site a while back. I’m glad he alerted me.

I would hate to miss an opportunity to view this selection of short movies, all I’ve seen so far done on digital video, but expertly enough to give me a film experience.

I’m far from evaluating any of these films as much as I might over time and reviewings. But I know this: if you care about short films or in fact, films, period, you should have a look at these. I don’t know how long they’ll remain available.

Here’s the link: festival.sundance.org/2006/watch/index.aspx

Short film history

2006-01-16T20:32:00.000-05:00

Here's a very good discussion of short films from their beginning when film itself began up to the proliferation of them at film festivals today.

When films began, reels ran a minute and so did films. When longer silent reels ran ten minutes, so did that era's shorts. When two ten-minute reels were combined in the early talkie era, shorts expanded to ten minutes.

As we plan to explore here later, the short films of the early film era have much to teach us yet about those produced now.

Short Film Essay

http://www.kinema.uwaterloo.ca/gp-pt972.htym

Harold Bloom is About to Die at iFilm

2006-01-07T17:21:00.000-05:00

Harold Bloom is About to Die is among the top five most popular short comedies at iFilm.com.

Harold (Jeffrey Weissman) is anxiously waiting for his date and hoping to score when hooded Death (Ryan DoRemus) shows up and says it's time to move on to the next life.

"Jesus Christ," swears Harold.
"No, I'm Death," the hooded figure answers.

Harold begs for a little extra time because he's a virgin (this 2002 short preceeded the currently popular feature about the 40-year-old virgin).

"Get a move on," Death says. "I've got an earthquake about to happen in Asia."

The whole 11 and a half minute film is vulgar but amusing. It reminds me a bit of Woody Allen's play, "Death Knocks," which would make a good short film itself. Director Anthony Piersanti is no Woody Allen, however.

Death and Harold both overact when restraint is called for. DoRemus would have done well to emulate Frederick March's creepy, underplayed Death in "Death Takes a Holiday." Playing straight makes comedy work.

Still, I got few laughs from this and it's worth a look.

17 of 24 frames on the Short Film Review Scale. Not really a killer...lol.

Dangle Will Ding Ya

2006-01-07T16:58:00.000-05:00

We saw "Dangle," written and directed by Phil Traill over at Channel4.com, which has a fine selection of international short films. This 2003 German/UK production is a simple idea well done. If you suddently discovered the light switch to the world while out hiking, would you play with it? The ending is predictable, but the film manages to make an entertaining six minutes out of the idea.

You can find it here: www.channel4.com

San Francisco Short Film Fest Wants Entries

2006-01-07T16:33:00.000-05:00

The San Francisco Short Film Festival seeks entries. Photo is of the Victoria Theatre in the Mission District, one of the venues.

For more info: San Francisco Short Film Fest

Dual Gives Spielberg Classic Legs

2006-01-06T20:36:00.000-05:00

"Dual," made by Wilmington, NC filmmakers, really shows what you can do with not only film but also with the Internet if you want to make a showpiece.

This short film, like the film that inspired it -- Stephen Spielberg's "Duel", which happens to be showing on the Sundance cable channels this month (January, 2006) is one long chase scene. Also like Spielberg's, this "Dual" manages to keep the tension high, aided by Philip Glass-like minimalist thriller music, a wicked pace, and a situation easy to imagine oneself experiencing in today's weird world.

This is sophisticated short filmmaking. Reading reviews from others, I'm continuously amused by the way reaction to films is most certainly in the eye of the beholder. Some found it pointless or boring, while others found it as stimulating and interesting a piece of short film making as I do.

I still don't hesitate to recommend it, but obviously, it's not for everyone. Personally, I'd be proud of this one. Buckley Hubbard gets writing/directing credits. I enjoy minor touches, such as the cigar the runner substituting for Spielberg's faceless trucker smokes (the diesel smokestack of the semi) and similar clever correspondances to the original.

If you've got the bandwidth to handle the full download with alternate versions and assorted left turns during the chase, by all means give it a try. It's interactive city as you make decisions for the runner. You be the director.

I'd give Dual 22 of 24 frames on the short attention span theatre scale.

Addicting Clips - Funny Short Vids

2006-01-06T19:56:00.000-05:00

The world of short movies is expanding so rapidly it's hard to keep up.

Here's a site dedicated to hilarious, embarassing, informative, idiotic and otherwise entertaining short clips. They range from "Boom goes the Dynamite," to French Maids teaching podcasting seminude. Uh, huh, sure.

We'd be willing to bet you don't learn much about podcasting while watching it.

Worth a visit if you need a laugh.
www.addictingclips.com/

Warning: I could easily get along without all the Adultfriendfinder sex ads. But the clips themselves are fun. They aren't, by and large, in the same category as the fine short films reviewed elsewhere here by any means. In fact, I wouldn't really know how to review them seriously or take them seriously. But we're in an inclusive rather than an exclusive mood today.

For a somewhat similar mindless fix of short video stuff, from star fixations to nude this and that, you might try www.break.com or www.heavy.com.

Not for the prudish. And they're skimpy on anything resembling art, even in their cheap video fashion. They also seem rather relentlessly male-oriented. You have to wonder if the sheer sleeze attraction of this stuff crowds out attention to the incredible wealth of fine short films at Atom, ifilm, and elsewhere on the Web and off.

Video University

2006-01-06T19:47:00.000-05:00

Shoot video to look like film: tips and techniques from DAVID CROSSMAN, a broadcast television director with credits in drama series, music, and children's programmes in the U.K. and abroad.

He shoots both multi-camera studio and single-camera technique for Channel Four and the BBC - and companies specialising in corporate communications and training.

Great ideas for making what he calls "more loveable video."

Check it out at:
www.videouniversity.com/filmtovi.htm

While you're at it, don't miss the entire free library at VideoUniversity.com

Lucky Fan

2005-12-29T23:28:00.000-05:00

One Lucky Fan, another of Atom Film's best of 2005 exhibits the qualities that draw the largest audiences still, a sexy woman vamping and a surprise ending that seems entirely appropriate. Sharp piece of work, as all of Atom's top ten offerings are this year.

Consent, Sex Contract at Atom Films

2005-12-29T23:07:00.000-05:00

"Consent" a short film on Atom Film's top ten list for 2005, takes a satiric look at what might happen if marriage prenupital contracts were extended to sexual relationships.

The reactions of the actors to their lawyers suggestions are hilarious, but the whole thing is take-this-to-extremes funny yet meaningful in more ways than one. I particularly liked Rachel Vacca's nonverbal reactions to the staid lawyerly suggestions regarding who would do what to whom and for how long.

All of the Atom films top ten this year show impressive technical and story-telling expertise. Even streamed onto a computer screen they have movie impact.

Impressive work. Here's the credits for "Consent."

Director: Jason Reitman
Writer: Jason Reitman
Executive Producer: David Tate
Producer: Dan Dubiecki
Director of Photography: Eric Steelberg
Editor: Yanosh Cuglove
Story by: Michele Lee
Line Producer: Scott Ludden
Complete Cast: Todd Waldman, Rachel Vacca, Katy Ostrander, Jeff Witzke, Taylor Nasseur

Atom films selects best of 2005 shorts

2005-12-29T22:23:00.000-05:00

Best Atom Films for 2005

"A Ninja pays half my rent," is a clever and very funny take on the whole Ninja Hong Kong film-making school. You''l get more than a few laughs from it's satiric take on the tradition from the viewpoint of a normal guy who just happens to have a Ninja roommate...or two...
Director: Steven K. Tsuchida
Producers: Steven K. Tsuchida, Mark Castro
Writers: Steven K. Tsuchida, Aaron Ginsberg, Wade McIntyre
Complete Cast: Steven Tsuchida, Mark Castro, Aaron Ginsburg, Timm Sharp, Stever Yeager, Anthony Liebetrau, Shin Koyamada

Luke Franklin's portrait of an extremely tall man an a dwarf is reminsiscent of the Southern Gothic tradition of Carson McCullers, William Faulkner, and Flannery O'Conner. It's a hoot. Though you really should read O'Connor and McCullers. They're funny too, and maybe a bit more character driven so that you get that extra literary OOMPHTH. Cast: Declan Sammon, Conn Rogers, Johan Slattery.

Damah Short Film Fest Seeks Submissions

2005-12-15T11:09:00.000-05:00

THE DAMAH FILM FESTIVAL, the world's leading spiritual short film festival, announced its call for entries for the 2006 festival to be held in Los Angeles next May.

The festival accepts short films from any genre, made in any format, in any year. The only requirement is that films must be no longer than 30 minutes and submitted in a DVD format.

The Damah Festival is unique in providing community, education and distribution opportunities to emerging filmmakers as well as great parties. Submission deadlines are December 15th, 2005 for early submissions, January 1st, 2006 for regular submissions and January 15th, 2006 for late submissions. Fees are $35 early, $40 regular, and $45 for late submissions. Submissions can be through the Damah
Film Festival website.

Rest of Sundance Short Film Lineup

2005-12-15T10:10:00.000-05:00

Here's the rest of the impressive lineup of short films scheduled at the 2006 Sundance Film Festival.

The Sundance site offers its own short films about the festival and they're an insider's look at what's going on. It's a perfect touch for a film fest Web site and we're betting you'll see more of the same for other festivals in the coming year(s).

The festival's "Frontier" shorts program looks particularly interesting.

Here's the animated, frontier, and international shorts lineup:

Animated Shorts
FABLE (Director: Daniel Sousa)—A woman and man's passions are overshadowed by their predatory instincts.
FUMI AND THE BAD LUCK FOOT (Director: David Chai)—The story of Fumi and her extremely unlucky foot, including a shotgun barrage, wild moose attack, and infant electrocution.
GOPHER BROKE (Director: Jeff Fowler)— No matter how hungry a gopher may be there is no free lunch.
HADACOL CHRISTMAS (Director: Brent Green)— Santa Claus invents Christmas with a belly
full of cough syrup and a head full of dying crows.
LOS ABCS: ¡QUE VIVAN LOS MUERTOS! (Director: John Jota Leaños)—Do you remember
your ABCs? No? Well, you’re in luck. Sing along with this group of animated Mariachi social documentarians.
THE WRAITH OF COBBLE HILL (Director: Adam Parrish King)—It's up to Felix to either
reciprocate the benevolence shown him, or perpetuate the neglect handed down as a family legacy.

INTERNATIONAL SHORT FILMS
This year's collection of shorts from around the world offers a compelling look at stories about leaving home, crossing borders, fitting in, living with war, meditations on poetry and life, Aboriginal culture and cow tipping.

Dramatic Shorts
ANTONIO'S BREAKFAST / UK (Director: Daniel Mulloy)—A young man and his friends make room for a father's needs.
ARUBA / Canada (Director: Hubert Davis)—With domestic violence and drug abuse at home, a young boy's only escape is through his imagination.
BAWKE / Norway (Director: Hisham Zaman)—A father is forced to choose between two evils to provide for his son's future.
THE BEGINNING OF THE END / Brazil (Director: Gustavo Spolidoro)—A man struggles to maintain normalcy in a home besieged by war.
BE QUIET / France (Director: Sameh Zoabi)—A simple car trip is beset by politically charged tension and a militarized reality.
BEFORE DAWN / Hungary (Director: Bálint Kenyeres)—Before dawn, people will rise and other people will take away their hope.
DESEJO / Brazil (Director: Anne Pinheiro Guimarães)—A journey into the psyche of Atanasio, a doorman in Copacabana.
EXOTICORE / Belgium (Director: Nicolas Provost)—An immigrant from Burkina Faso attempts to integrate into Norwegian society.
LE ROUGE AU SOL/ Canada (Director: Maxime Giroux)—After hitting rock-bottom, a man shares his feelings with his mother as they drive to Ikea.
MONSIEUR ETIENNE / France (Director: Yann Chayia)—An elderly man cannot decide which of his friend's funerals he should attend on the same day.
THE NATURAL ROUTE / Spain (Director: Álex Pastor)—Soon Divad will find out that his destiny is already written and that he can’t do anything to change it.
A SUPERMARKET LOVE SONG / UK (Director: Daniel Outram)—A teenage girl on community service takes an old man to the supermarket. A love story in a minor key.

Documentary Shorts
RAPE FOR WHO I AM / South Africa (Director: Lovinsa Kavuma)—An insight into the lives of South Africa’s black lesbians who, raped because of their sexuality, refuse to become victims.
SMUDGE / Canada (Director: Gail Maurice)—Witness how a small group of Aboriginal women celebrate their rights to worship in the city their way.
UNDRESSING MY MOTHER / Ireland (Director: Ken Wardrop)—A poignant documentary that explores a woman’s unique take on her overweight and aging body.

Animated Shorts
AT THE QUINTE HOTEL / Canada (Director: Bruce Alcock)—In an incredible animated version of the Al Purdy poem, a man waxes on about beer and flowers in a small-town basement tavern.
BOB LOG III'S ELECTRIC FENCE STORY / Germany (Director: Stock 'n' Wolf )—Big difficulties are encountered by Bob Log III in the Black Forest while trying to knock over sleeping cows.
CLARA / Australia (Director: Van Sowerwine)—A twelve year old girl's world has just changed forever.
FLESH/ France (Director: Edouard Salier)—The Empire unveils everything but sees nothing and its enemies idealize everything but tolerate nothing. For some it’s the earthly orgasm of virtual whores, while for others the eternal orgasm of 70 heavenly virgins.
A HALF MAN / Canada (Director: Firas Momani)—A half of a man has trouble living in society without his organs falling out.
THE MYSTERIOUS GEOGRAPHIC EXPLORATIONS OF JASPER MORELLO / Australia (Director: Anthony Lucas)—In a fantasy future, a navigator goes on a journey to find a cure for the plague killing his fiancee.
YESTERDAY, I THINK / UK (Director: Becalelis Brodskis)—Once there was a baby that made those around him hate...

FRONTIER SHORT FILMS The Festival’s Frontier short film section presents nine films that represent new directions in filmmaking. Utilizing experimental and innovative aesthetic approaches, work in the Frontier category challenges and provokes.

THE BLEEDING HEART OF IT / Canada (Director: Louise Bourque)—The house that bursts;
the scene of the crime; the nucleus. A universe collapses on itself: all hell breaks loose.
FANTOME AFRIQUE / UK (Director: Isaac Julien)—Cinematic and architectural references are weaved through the rich imagery of urban Ouagadougou, the center for cinema in Africa, and the arid spaces of rural Burkina Faso.
HIGH PLAINS WINTER / USA (Directors: Cindy Stillwell)—The cold and magnificent times of a Montana town.
INSTRUCTIONS FOR A LIGHT AND SOUND MACHINE / Austria (Director: Peter Tscherkassky)—An attempt to transform a Roman Western into a Greek tragedy.
QUIMERA / Brazil (Director: Eryk Rocha)—Man and cat are melting at the invisible limit of their bodies, made of rumors from a mythical creature, a new animal.
SITE SPECIFIC_LAS VEGAS 05 / Italy (Director: Olivo Barbieri)—One-hundred years after it's foundation and seemingly impermeable to the energy crises and terrorism which face the world today, what has become of Las Vegas?
TRUE NORTH / USA (Director: Isaac Julien)—One of the key members of Robert E. Peary’s 1909 Arctic expedition, Matthew Henson, an African-American, was arguably the first person to reach the North Pole.
UTEN TITTEL / Norway (Director: Anja Breien)—A poetic film about a cruel theme, told in a way that doesn't make the spectators close their eyes.
VISCERA / USA (Director: Leighton Pierce)—Flowing video explores absence and how absence transforms and influences perception, memory, and imagination.

Video Blogging Taking Off

2005-12-13T17:58:00.000-05:00

Video blog star is born

So says the New York Times about vblogger Amanda Congdon, who hosts Rocketbloom.com.

Congdon is among the more successful practioners of this new form of blogging. Her vlog includes correspondents from around the U.S. and Europe and focues on Internet and tech culture. She's an actress who's appeared on network TV and presents an entertaining show in her short pieces.

The article points out that vlogs are blooming with more than 2,000 already listed in one directory. Here's a piece about them over at MSNBC

Since vlogs are essentially short video movies, we'll be discussing them at more length here on an ongoing basis.

Pillowfight Grinds To a Climax

2005-12-10T22:23:00.000-05:00

Director Scott Rice did "Pillowfight," a 4:24 minute short in 2004 and it's a taut little drama. My ex wife used to grind her teeth and it's more disturbuing than you actually experience here. It's a viscerally disturbing sound and sensation. Rice, who dedicates this short to his wife, captures a sense of true love no-matter-what in this little film.

The poor protagonist's wife also snores. "It's just epiglotal thrust," a loud snoring friend of mine once said at camp. "Epiglotal my patooty. I'm gonna shove that epiglotis up your backside," another camp roommate said. Craig Cline, here, playing the husband, does rather better by Stephanie Etie in this miniature love story.

We love Rice's "Perils of Nude Modeling," short reviewed earlier on this blog, which we fortunately saw orignally on a big screen at Winston-Salem's (NC) fine Riverrun International Film Festival in 2005 and then again on a fine dvd transfer with the book "International Short Film Festival," and yet again on Atomfilms.com, where you can also catch "Pillowfight."

It's another tight, focused, expertly told, technically effective, and moving short.

This guy knows how to make a short film. I'm betting he's going to have a lucrative career doing just that if he wants, although feature producers are likely to come a calling too.

Glamour Magazine Launches Short Films

2005-12-09T17:32:00.000-05:00

Glamour Magazinehas launched a short film series based on true stories submitted by its readers. The one that's getting the most ink (and electrons) is "Dealbreaker," directed by Gweneth Paltrow, but not available until Jan. 29.

Meanwhile, you can catch the others, including "Gnome," "Good Morning Baby," "Little Black Dress," and "Wait," at:
www.subscriberdirect.com/glamour/reel_moments0512/films.cfm

Check back here for reviews of them all soon.

Sundance to Run 73 Shorts

2005-12-09T17:21:00.000-05:00

Sundance Film Festival 2006 plans to screen 73 short films in three categories: dramtic, doc, adn animated. They were culled from 4,327 submissions to the festival. This year it runs from Jan. 19-29 in Utah.

Starting Jan. 19, you can also view all of the shorts at teh Sundance online Film Festival at www.sundance.org, and you better believe we'll be reviewing the lot of them, even if I have to pay some additional reviewers cold, hard cash.

The shorts include 42 from the U.S., and 31 from 17 other countries.

Festival Director of Programming John Cooper said, "Short films have always had an important role in cinema and at the Sundance Film Festival. As the tools required to create films have become more accessible, new voices have emerged, and short films are a place to discover some of the most creative and challenging work being done today."

Here's our first list of the Sundance short films:

U.S. SHORT FILMS

Dramatic Shorts

Bugcrush (Director: Carter Smith) -- A small-town high school loner, whose fascination with a dangerously seductive new kid leads him into something much more sinister than he could ever have imagined.

Common Practice (Director: Marcos Efron) -- A young Mexican-American boy in East L.A. whose gift for playing the violin brings his community together.

Dealbreaker (Director: Gwyneth Paltrow and Mary Wigmore) -- A down to earth New Yorker, who is finally able to look past superficial flaws when she finds the right man.

The Debt / USA/Republic of Georgia (Director: Levan Koguashvili) -- Two illegal Georgian immigrants from the former Soviet Union fight for their survival in the streets of Brooklyn, New York.

Divorce Lemonade (Director: Justin Hayward) -- A 13-year-old girl covers for her drunk estranged father.

First Date (Director: Gary Huggins) -- A volatile ex-con will stop at nothing to keep a date with the underage boy he met online.

Fourteen (Director: Nicole Barnette) -- A Mormon girl turns fourteen and her life changes radically.

Gesture Down/I Don't Sing /USA/Mexico (Director: Cedar Sherbert)--A graceful and personal adaptation of the poem "Gesture Down to Guatemala" by the late Native American writer James Welch.

Ha Ha Ha America (Director: Jon Daniel Ligon) -- From China, a translated harangue laughs at the missteps of the USA.

Hello, Thanks (Director: Andrew Blubaugh) -- Filmmaker Andy Blubaugh's year in the personal ads, looking for love but having his true love affair with the words themselves.

Hold Up (Director: Madeleine Olnek) -- A robber who is after more than the money at a corner-store hold up.

La Muerte Es Pequena / USA/Brazil (Director: Fellipe Gamarano Barbosa) -- Two strangers looking for apartments end up alone in the same unit, where personal philosophies and bodies collide.

Lighten Up (Director: John Viener) -- A man deals with becoming a father while driving his friend to the doctor.

Marjoun and the Flying Headscarf (Director: Susan Youssef)--An Arab-American girl who must come to terms with her sexuality while balancing the mores of two different cultures.

Max and Josh (Director: Kathryn Ann Busby) -- Best friends Max and Josh have inane, insane and hilarious arguments, until fate intervenes.

Momma's Boy (Director: John Bryant) -- A young man brings his fiance home for Thanksgiving dinner - bad things happen.

One Sung Hero (Director: Samantha Kurtzman-Counter) -- A 34-year-old copy machine salesperson (by day) who has found her true calling as a Karaoke Missionary.

The Pity Card (Director: Bob Odenkirk) -- Is the best place for a first date really the Holocaust Museum?

Redemptitude (Director: David Zellner) -- A preacher ventures deep into the Australian Outback to save the soul of a man who's abandoned his faith.

Robin's Big Date (Director: James Duffy) -- Can the Boy Wonder tell the girl of his dreams how he feels about her? Not if The Bat-man has anything to say about it.

Transaction (Director: Jacques Thelemaque) -- A cinema verite-style exploration of the shifting dynamic between a seasoned call girl and her first-time client.

You Turned Back And Held My Hand (Director: Gabriela Tollman) -- When do we know the difference between love and sex?

Your Dark Hair Ihsan / USA/Mexico (Director: Tala Hadid) -- A man returns from Europe to his natal city in Northern Africa, and remembers his childhood and the mother he lost as a child.

Rex Steele, Nazi Smasher Kicks Swastika Butt

2005-12-05T15:48:00.000-05:00

Alex Woo's "Rex Steele, Nazi Smasher," made the festival rounds last year (we saw it at the venerable Carolina Theatre in Durham NC at one of its many festivals). It's also over at AOL's Moviefone.com.

"Rex Steele" follows in the tradition of Richard Fleisher's 1940s Superman animations (I hesitate to call such elegant film-making cartoons). Both use film techniques to give their comic book narratives a cinematic feel one too seldom sees in animation then or now. The "Star Wars" reminescent music drives the action with lush movie orchestration while the direction is cinematic, cutting from moody, noirish establishing shots to Leone-style close ups.

Graphic narratives (comic books? graphic novels or stories) at their best are cinematic. They tell their action sequences in pictures as film does. We apprehend the world through these picture/action narratives. So they go straight to our brain and evoke an emotional response. That's why film is the most popular and universal medium man ever invented.

"Rex Steele" is more of a homage to the Fleisher style animation--or perhaps "Heavy Metal" magazine's, and others of their type, all too few though they are. It reminds us of how much more than the general TV type of animation so common is actually possible.

This is a simple hero-saves-the-girl story with more sexy "Heavy Metal" and Frank Frazetta style art than say Fleisher's 1940's Lois Lane. Those giant sci-fi machines, (one look and the phallic nature of those big pointy things is pretty obvious), the action-adventure formula, and the rock-jawed, bulging muscled hero all hark to archetypes of the genre. But they're used effectively and the audience actualy cheered when I saw this for the first time on a big screen. It's lots of fun without any serious message.
Both images in this post are copyrighted and used with permission of Alex Woo.

Headgear Girl at Underground Films

2005-12-04T18:05:00.000-05:00

Head Gear Girl

"Head Gear Girl," by writer-director Emily Weissman, is about a young girl wearing head gear braces that make her an outsider. Any of us who have been outsiders in our time can identify and feel empathy for the character.

Still, as a couple of reviewers on Undergroundfilm.org note, the title sequence is overly long for a very short movie, as are the end credits. The story itself is more of a slice-of-life thing than a finished plotline. Emily would have done well to cut the front and back credit sequences and added a bit more story development, again, something site reviewers suggest. I frequently disagree with site-reviewer comments on Atom and ifilm and AOl's moviefone (see links on sidebar). But these Undergroundfilm.org reviewers are sharp.

Megan Casey handled the title role here with alplomb. I'm always impressed with younger actors who pull off such professional performances. Is it our movie culture that instills acting talent this way or is it that acting is such a natural part of being human? Regardless, Casey is talented. We hope to see more of her.

The movie has nice action sequences for a mini-DV production, all well handled by Casey. The movie progresses quickly and I particularly liked the brief section where Casey ducks into the grass to avoid being seen by classmates who unmercifully tease her. It spoke volumes about the character and Casey moves well, effortlessly, regardless of what she does. All of the actors turn in professional level performances, though.

The camerawork, sound and other technical aspects of this are suberb for MiniDV, better, really than all too many we see using much higher-end equipment.

Here are the details from the

Underground film

site:

Running Time: (11 minutes 37 seconds)
Original Format: MiniDV
Filmmaker BioOriginally very Montana, Emily attended the Walnut Hill School for the Arts outside of Boston before recieving a B.F.A. in Film at New York University and an M.F.A. in directing at the American Film Institute. Other than writing and directing, she's rather mothery.

Influences
"Yikes" and "Champs" comic books by Ribs, Joseph Losey films, Michael Ritchie films, and the writers Malcolm Lowry, Roald Dahl, and Percy Bysshe Shelley

Cast
Francesca Catalano, Member of the Shark PAck
Megan Casey, Head Gear Girl
Michael Salai, Member of the Shark Pack
Sean Carrillo, Member of the Shark Pack
Trevor James, Potential Boy

Crew
Emily Weissman, Director
Gloria Rosa Vela, Editor
Philip Harris, Producer
Emily Weissman, Writer
Aasulv Wolf Austad, Director of Photography
Jennifer Alicia Jones, Production Designer

Sexual Harrassment Film Laugh-out-Loud funny

2005-12-03T20:27:00.000-05:00

sexual harassment

This satire on sexual harrassment at Underground Films is entertaining if not PC. The language and imagery of this movie is hilarious and will make you laugh out loud, but the thing is raunchy to the max.

Sexual Harassment

by Tyler Spiers

Running Time: (2 minutes 35 seconds)
Original Format: MiniDV
Filmmaker Bio
Tyler Spiers and Joe Davidson are comedic filmmakers. Check out all their films at www.blueribbonpanel.org

Ako: Is that me on TV?

2005-12-02T17:56:00.000-05:00

We've been exploring a number of sites that offer a pleathora of short films for your pleasure and elucidation. Undergroundfilm.org offers many intriguing short movies well worth exploring.

The film vocabulary speaks to the mind, but we don't mind a little plotting along with feeding our image addiction.

At www.undergroundfilm.org/We tried first, "Ako To'" by Jurly O. Malodon-on Jr.

Athough some interactive comments suggest it's intended as an ironic satire on Philippine politics, it comes across as just another It-was-all-a-dream scenario in which a tv-watcher sees himself unaccountably on his small tv screen. H'mmm, why am I on TV, he wonders. He yanks the plug. He's still on. It's incrutable (to resort to western cliches). Or is it a doppelganger exercise with a video double, another you onscreen? Who's you, the one on screen?

There is a frisson, a scary moment when he first sees the shadow of a figure carrying a knife behind him on the screen, but even that is rather cliched.

Even the device of the "double" seems fairly common in short films. We recently saw another doppelganger short in which a charcter meets his double, "Rear View Mirror" over at iflim.com's midnight movies category. We'll review it soon.

The whole idea of encountering an exact twin or perhaps ourselves at some intersection of dimensions or time and space is a freaky little bit of alienation that didn't just pop out of the modern imagination. In literature, Edgar Allan Poe ("The Doppleganger"); Doetoevski ("The Double" pretty much exchangeable titles, since "Doppleganger" means "Double" in the sense of exact twin in German) and Conrad ("The Secret Sharer") among others, have tackled the theme. Some modern physics even suggest that infinite mulitple dimensions even mean we may all have our "doubles" in dimensional time and space.

On the other hand, the device often strikes me as the uber-cliched easy out of "It was all a dream," and using both devices as "Ako" does, fails to redeem the cliche or the film.

Nevertheless, "Ako's" effective use of a claustrophobic small room setting with its tiny TV and single character in a t-shirt does suggest our blood connection to watching electrons dance. I think it's less a comment on Phillipine politics than one on the way we connect to TV microwaves in our living rooms.

Presley Films at AOL's Short Film Fest

2005-12-02T15:30:00.000-05:00

We're talking David Presley, here, not Elvis, in case you came looking for the King instead of the director of short films and film technician (that's Presley, center, in the photo). You can find his films at AOL's Moviefone.

David, who has an impressive IMBD page, also has the unusual distinction of winning a place in the 1984 Guineess book of world records for his score on the video game, "Timepilot," has made two shorts available on AOL's Moviefone.com.

They are "Face of the Enemy," which won well deserved attention at numerous film festivals and "Rule Number One," which we found equally effective technically, but much less cohesive despite more than twice the length (10 minutes for Enemy vs. 25 for Rule) of his earlier film.

"Rule Number One" shifts from fiction and a character to documetary and that character interviewing other girls about whether or not "Guys only want one thing." Danielle Panabaker's flawless acting and girl-next-door looks bring a grounded feelign of reality to the enterprise.

I do like the whole film within a film idea as a structural device and the recursive nature of the film. Our minds work through recursive means, everything falling back on itself, everything referring back to other things in this endless procession of linked ideas and images. Watching this film is a little like watching someone think.

"Face the Enemy" benefits from our long exposure to quick cutting in war films or those dealing with violence and upheaval from "Potemkin" on. It works on your nerves with its rapid fire machine gun of images and explosive battlefield simulations.

"Rule Number One," (Men only want one thing...guess what that is?)on the other hand, loses us with quick cutting without transitions. Co-conceived with star Danielle Panabaker, who carries her role off with panache and talent, it has touching moments. But it's a short with a feature agenda.
(That's Danielle in the photo)

Short films such as Presley's show considerable technical mastery. The cinematography is impressive and accomplished, the lighting expert, the acting believable and without jarring wrong notes. But they suffer, even the best of them, from trying to say too much or suggest too much, or not having anything at all to say, or not getting across what they're trying to say. They have muddled plots, present characters we do not care about and feed only our image addiction without engaging our minds or hearts.

Presley's films do not suffer from all of these faults by any means and their technical mastery raises them well above the average on all counts. You just feel the cinematic sense underlying these shorts, the feel for the language of movies. Yet they suffer from script weaknesses that impair their impact. I want to see the loving attention paid to technical expertise applied to telling a coherent and powerful, affecting story.

Many of these short films are meant as technical ability showcases intended to land the directors and others involved jobs in the industry. They often succeed on that level. I'd hire Presley and company based on these films. I'd hire Panabaker.

The question I always ask on top of looking at their sales reel qualities, is whether or not these short films succeed as films. Presley's do better than many. With more attention to telling a moving story, they could do better than all but a very few.

Presley has managed to get lots of feature film work ("Starship Troopers,", "The Insider," "Gone in 60 Seconds," among many others in crew roles as video assist operator and other slots. He'll need to sharpen his story sense to move on to directing larger projects successfully.

Presley's "Face the Enemy" works because it is focused on more than camera angles and rapid cutting. It emotionally engages us. His second fails to engage the viewer as viscerally, because it does not find its emotional connection, despite Panabaker's winsome qualities.

But you could not call either of these short films failures compared to the morass of half-thought-out, simplistic and derivative efforts out there in shortfilmland.

If I could place a bet, I'd say Presley and company will showing up on everyone's radar (and movie, computer, tv screens) in the future. Panabaker as well, and I'll be looking for both of them.

Bathtime in Clerkenwell

2005-11-26T18:52:00.000-05:00

I love these come'on titles. One of these days, I'll do an entire essay about the way movie-makers have figured out how to suck in festival goers and online viewers with provocative titles. "Bathtime in Clerkenwell." (You may have to look in the short films archive at AOL). I just had to know what THAT was about.

I admit, the resulting 3-minute animation of silouetted clock-cukoos going about their mad takeover of London, surprised me. It reminded me of the classic animations in the first half of the last century (early Disney and Warner's Merry Melodies) where music drove the action and the whole took on the quality of an animated ballet.

I really enjoyed this clever and oddly mood-enhancing piece. It's a rapid tour-de-force. I don't like to read too much into a 3-minute short, but it does have something to say about the mechanization of society and the way mechanical things can take over our lives.

The way the animator includes clocks on the trains the cuckoos drive, the mechanical aspect of things - an animated shower making the water resemble bullets for instance -- adds a subtle layer to this piece.

It's directed by Alex Budovsky, a Russian native who moved to NYC in 1994 and was graduated from Brooklyn College with a BA in film, directed the movie in 2002. It has a bit of that Eastern European look despite his years here.

Dick in Ad Corp

2005-11-25T20:52:00.000-05:00

Andy Dick wears a hairdoo even creative types would worry about in "Ad Corp," directed by Marshall Cook, who himself has impressive bit part acting credits in TV shows such as "JAG."

The film is available both at iFilms.com and AOL's Moviefone.com.

Dick dominates this 12-minute short about a bunch of ad agency types trying to come up with the perfect campaign idea for home depot type store that sells, among other things, trash cans made of chrome. Talk about glorifying garbage and proverbial conspicuous consumption...

Dick, accomplished though he is, can't really save this from draggy lack-of-material syndrome, which he can blame only on himself, since he wrote it. Woody Allen, it's not. Where are the jokes?

Short comedies were the engine that created movies as we know them. Those early shorts by Keaton, Chaplin and Lloyd, among others, had a comedic energy that still makes people laugh today. This static, overly verbal piece doesn't come anywhere near the silent comedians in their effective and evocative use of cinema.

You have to applaude Dick for writing and appearing in a short film at all, but he might want to consider more physical comedy for shorts and shorter, quick, one-line jokes for sound. I'm still wondering why more modern comedians do not engage in a bit of physcial comedy. It still works. Think about Kramer bursting through Jerry's apartment door or doing some outrageous body and face reaction in "Seinfeld."

As it is, this only rates...

12 of 24 frames....

When Zombies Attack

2005-11-25T20:25:00.000-05:00

We have a guilty pleasure: we love Zombie films. No excuse except early exposure to George Romero's very good "Dawn of the Dead," which manages to be scary, gory, funny, satiric, ironic and a commentary on modern life all at once. "When Zombies Attack" over at iFilms.com is so deriviative of Romero's original "Night of the Living Dead" and sequels that it should maybe acknowledge the inspiration right up front.

Here's a hint about making zombie movies -- the viewer needs a few people to care about, apart from some narrator who's just chief zombie-slayer.

iFilm describes it thus (with some editing)

When Zombies Attack!! is a mock video documentary that follows heroic officer Frank Hadely of the Post Mortem Animation Control as he attempts to protect Burke County residents while trying to rid the community of the threat of zombies.

Despite our criticism, we did like the zombies themselves, the occassional surprising moments (not enough of them) and homage to Romero aspects of this. Still, coherence is a too much dispensed with value in short films and this one suffers from that what-the-hell-is-going-on incoherence so many of them do.

It stars Frank Rydberg and is directed by Chad Waters and Matt Rose. It runs a rather long 25 minutes.

Rating: 12 of 24 frames.

Stephen King Thriller "Strawberry Spring" is Foggy

2005-11-25T19:22:00.000-05:00

Stephen King is a poet of horror. You hear his dark poetry in this short film just under 8 minutes based on his story "Straawberry Spring."

"Stawberry Spring is a false spring, a lying spring." It brings a "strange, magical fog," and in this short, multiple murders. The student narrator quotes King's poetic steam-of-consciousness dialog. "Whoever killed her took his head with him." And later, after another serial killing, "When they found her, she was all over the campus..." referring, Kingly, to her body parts.

King's work has not translated all that well to film, long or short. Even in the hands of directors as renowned as Stanley Kubrick, who lensed "The Shining," film adaptions of his novels and stories don't generally have the kick of his books. William Goldman's adaption of "Misery" directed by Rob Reiner and "The Green Mile," and "Stand by Me," fared better than most. The imagination often conjures horror better than visualization.

But the problems with "Strawberry Spring" resemble those of many another short movie we've seen. So many short films we see these days are technically intersting. They feature "frame" shots through mirrors and doors and car windshields ala Fassbinder and many another art house director. I'm all for it, too. Technique adds much visual pleasure to movies and it is all too often pedestrian. But atomosphere, particularly fog, gets in the way of clear exposition in this brief piece. Engagement in a story requires enough clarity to care about someone in the story.

It's a failing of many short films. The elipsis...the cut out parts...the cuts...fades...dissolves all leave us slightly confused rather than informed. Cinema is a language we should understand naturally. It's based on our mind's natural way of perceiving the world. So fog isn't a good thing in exposition. Despite all that, this story is just a little too predictable to have plot surprise.

"When police begin finding bodies on a college campus, all the students are shaken by the murders, except for one who is enchanted by them," says the promo on Ifilm for this short. Even that is more foreshawdowing than we need to figure out this all-too-common plot of the narrator did it.

Let's face it, the unreliable narrator has been around since Poe's "Tell Tale Heart," and Agathe Christie's "The Murder of Roger Ackroyd." Not that stealing plots is any sin. Plots are those repeating human conditions, trouble narratives, or just plain trouble.

Still, despite these reservations, this is a well made short piece, well worth your seven mintues or so. I've watched it several times and it does reward at least a second viewing, which isn't something I'd say about every short film I watch.

Here's the nitty-gritty. Strawberry Spring

Starring: Greg Lock, Morgan Hatch
Directed by: Doveed Linder
Distributed by: IFILM
Run Time: 7:52
Release Year: 2002

Rating: 17.5 of 24 frames.

iFilm Alien Short of Anything New

2005-11-25T18:26:00.000-05:00

href="http://www.ifilm.com/ifilmdetail/2414600">Alien Museum on IFilm.com is obvious and derivative. It does have some nice animation, but you won't see anything surprising or alien. It was old stuff when Spielberg did it.

It does have a few seconds that remind me of old Warner Brothers cartoons, which is high praise, but otherwise, it could do with a little fresh thinking.

Aliens have become commonplace images in our culture. They've been the subject of "Take me to your leader" cartoons since the 1950s and while they may or may not be here for real, they have certainly found a place in our cultural image bank. The only way to work effectively with these cultural icons is to turn them upside down or inside out. This film, on the other, hand, is merely another instance of the cultural sterotype without exploring beyond it.

href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/3745/7/1600/ialien.0.jpg">

Rating: 10 of 24 frames.

Flicka Brings Electrons to Life

2005-11-23T20:41:00.000-05:00

"Flicka," a short film over at Atomfilms.com from the Netherlands, is part of a 21st century genre, the digital-video romance.

Science fiction writer Terry Bisson did a terrific take on this in his short story "Office Romance." It also reminds me a little of the old black and white "Twilight Zone" episode about the man emprisoned on a lonely asteroid who falls in love with his female android (robot) companion.

Robot love. Electron love. Video passion.

The film, directed by Guido van Gennep and Marco Vermaas, has a dystopian look reminiscent of many a sci-fi future, even if this one is already here. I find that interesting, present film that reminds me of past futures. Yesterday's tommorows here today.

On the other hand, the purely virtual/visual romance Victor Low portrays for Helena Reijn as an electronic woman running out of virtual food Low can no longer purchase, is shallow and superficial at a level that questions our image addiction.

I was particularly impressed by the location sets and impression of a world just a bit different from ours suggested in "Flicka." The acting is also solid. All in all a fine piece of work.

Rating: 17.5 of 24 frames.

For the Love of Film

2005-11-23T20:22:00.000-05:00

We enjoyed "For the Love of the Film," at the top of Atom Film's drama offerings at the moment. A showing of "Star Wars" falters and the manager tells the audience, they must call upon "The Force." In this case, "The Force" is a metaphor of the power fantasy has to transform reality for us, in particular, "The Force" movies exert. This audience inhabits the movie for a short, joyous participatory moment or three.

It reminds me audience participation at Midnight Movies such as "The Rocky Horror Picture Show."

Fair warning: not everyone at Atom Films loved it. One reviewer thought it one of the "dumbest offerings" he'd ever seen there. We find those Atom film folks dismissive and somewhat dim at times.

Director and co-producer and writer (with Troy Metcalf, who also heads the cast) Barry Curtis does a good job of pacing this short. I love the theatre setting and the odd memories it evokes. The device of shifting from black and white to color is getting a bit tired, perhaps, but actually does work here. Nice use of the wide screen ratio and good work by David Leopold, director of photography give it a big screen feel at short length.

The cast did a great job, relaxed and having fun with it. They are Troy Metcalf, Gary Curtis, Jackson Curtis, Nate Levy, Teri Jones, Sion Wong, Edward Kelly, Canedy Knowles, Kristian Deluccia, Jason Levenson, Andrea McCormick, Justin Deluccia, Elizabeth Viscusi, Stephanie Smith, Misty Leung, and Karla Mosley.

Rating: 17 of 24 frames.

Perils of Nude Modeling

2005-11-20T18:50:00.000-05:00

I caught "The Perils of Nude Modeling," by writer-director Scott Rice at the Riverrun International Film Festival in Winston-Salem, NC, in the wonderful studio/theatre complex that looks like a Hollywood backlot.

The ten-minute film pits an art student against a tyranical professor and a seductive nude model who makes a mouthed suggestion that disrupts the hero's focus, to say the least. The model, played by the luscious, yet earthy Estephania LaBaron,
entices the harried art student to break the unwritten but understood no-contact contract between artist and nude model. You see quite a bit of Estphania in this film, but I'm looking forward to seeing more of her. I especially enjoyed her look of pleasure when she sees the art student's final drawing.

You can watch it at Atomfilms.com: Perils of Nude Modeling

I'm impressed by the lush cinematography, tight editing, frenzied pace and perfect climax to this piece, which is also included on the DVD that comes with the "Student International Film Festival" book that includes director interviews and a handful of other worthy short films.

This saw a lot of small film festival play in 2005. Students make these as showcase pieces, and they are just that, although you seldom see one as polished as this one is. You'll feel the pressure as the art student rips his drawing sheet to the next just in time to prevent his professor from casting him out of the class. It's a mini-drama with rising tension and a nicely fulfilling conclusion. The sound, acting, and direction are all as professional as anything Hollywood produces while the concept and execution are rather better than lots of features I see (the perils of movie reviewing...you don't just see the good films).

LaBaron gives the harried artist a downright Chaplinesque look when she sheds her naked beauty and dons studentish glasses at the very end when they connect in a lovely film moment that collects all the movie's tensions and completes the plot arc in a throughly satisfying manner.

Repeated viewings of this short film only increased my admiration for its ability to create the full-fledged movie experience in such a short time-span.

Anyway, "Perils of Nude Modeling" is highly recommended. Give it a look. It's in the running for the first of our Short Attention Span Theatre Awards.

Rice also directed the Atom films hit Pillowfight.

Rating: 18 of 24 frames...

Doggone Good 64 Second Film

2005-11-13T22:00:00.000-05:00

We visited 64 seconds.com and viewed lots of the early entries.

"Inverse Universe," by Chris Chappel of Van Nuys, CA under the film category, picture of the dog -- who also cameos in the short movie-- is our favorite. Entered in the "Waitless" contest that's ongoing at the moment, it uses clever special effects as convinging in DV as Spielberg or Lucas pyrotechnics via Dreamworks or assorted pixel magic.

The film maker says he made it in two days on DV. Very impressive. You'll be asking yourself, "how did he do that?" I sure did.

The scene where he moves his feet when seemingly floating above tile while standing in front of an ordinary kitchen sink is convincing. The weightless movement of bowls adn a dog treat, which grabs the bemused attention of a real dog, is convincing.

All this makes the weightlessnes (waitlessly) convincing.

For a two-day DV production, this short, entertaining film suggests real talent by Chis Chappell.

Rating: 18 of 24 frames. Effects 22 of 24 frames.

Short Film Review

2005-11-13T21:42:00.000-05:00

Welcome to the Short Film Review's initial offering.

If you would like to join us as a reviewer of short (65 minutes and under) films, send an email to Editor/short films

There's a movie-making revolution a'coming. I've made much of my living writing about upcoming trends for magazines such as OMNI, Future Life, Next,, and assorted others. I've written about films for newspapers, national magazines, a radio/TV new wire service and city magazines. Here's something comin' down the tracks like Hurrican Katrina -- ultra short films (and maybe short radio plays...just as guess).

They're gonna rule the new melded media rapidly decending upon us via cell phones, iPods, MP3 Players, handheld computers, notebooks, laptops, home theatres, TVs, desktops at work, and . The media everywhere, ubitquitouos Internet, movies in our pocket, a universal encylopedia, push-pull information saturated society is upon us.

Short films of tens of seconds will be in demand. But first we must master many other miniature formats, 15 minutes, 10, 5, 3, 1, 30 seconds -- stealing the devices of commercials and promotional film...

But if you want to experience the films we'll be discussing here, take a look at the offerings at

www.atomfilms.com
www.ifilm.com
www.movieflix.com (check out film festival)